The city of Shanghai on Tuesday announced seven new deaths from Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths in China’s economic capital to 10 since the beginning of the month.
An epidemic outbreak
Since the supply chains were blocked by the restrictions, companies had to stop production in the 25 million metropolis after the lockdown was introduced.
Local authorities, like the rest of China and unlike many countries choosing to coexist with the virus and lifting restrictions, continue to follow a “zero Covid” policy in the face of the worst epidemic outbreak in China since the Covid-19 end 2019
20,000 cases daily
Shanghai City Hall had reported its first three deaths on Monday, a surprisingly low number in a city that counts about 20,000 contaminations a day. Since the start of the epidemic, first detected in central China in late 2019, Beijing has managed to limit the total number of victims to fewer than 5,000 dead and fewer than 190,000 infected if we go by official figures, much fewer than international figures.
But the Omicron variant hit hard the residents of Shanghai, who were held indefinitely in sometimes spartan conditions. The low mortality rate is worrying, especially as vaccination rates among elders are low. According to the town hall, the seven people who died in the past 24 hours were between 60 and 101 years old and suffered from previous illnesses. Nobody was vaccinated.