• Shanghai reported 914 COVID-19 cases with symptoms and 25,173 without on Sunday
• New wave of cases from Omicron variant of COVID-19 is said to be worst outbreak in China since initial phase of the pandemic in 2020
Another major Chinese city on Monday has imposed COVID-19 restrictions as Beijing is battling to contain a nationwide outbreak.
The southern city of Guangzhou, over the weekend, announced only citizens with a “definite need” can leave the city and only if they test negative for the virus within 48 hours of departure.
Guangzhou — the capital of Guangdong province, a manufacturing hub in the northwest of Hong Kong— reported 27 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, including nine without symptoms, up from 11 cases a day earlier.
Although the city municipality has not announced any such lockdown yet, primary and middle schools have been switched to online.
The metropolis with an 18 million population, a home to many top companies and China’s busiest airport, said the measures would last for at least a week.
An exhibition center was converted into a makeshift hospital, and the city has started mass testing for coronavirus late last week.
The financial hub of China, Shanghai, on Monday reported a record-high combined number of cases, with 26,087 new cases, among which only 914 showed symptoms.
Shanghai is accounting for most of mainland China’s new COVID-19 cases. The city has imposed a two-stage lockdown since March 28 and started mass virus testing.
The new growing number of cases has turned into an unprecedented challenge for the country’s ‘zero-COVID’ approach.
The renewed outbreak started in the city of Shenzhen, which connects Hong Kong with mainland China.
Shenzhen reported one new locally transmitted asymptomatic case of COVID-19 on Sunday. The city government said it has recorded one imported confirmed case and 12 imported asymptomatic cases. The patient of the imported confirmed case arrived from the US, and the patients of the imported asymptomatic cases arrived from Hong Kong.
The latest wave of cases stems from the highly transmissible Omicron variant and marks the worst COVID-19 outbreak on the mainland since the initial phase of the pandemic in early 2020.
Picture Credit: Outlook India
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