Last updated on June 11th, 2024 at 06:45 pm
New Delhi: China has declared to put its largest city Shanghai, which has a population of over 26 million, under lockdown due to record high new COVID-19 cases.
Shanghai’s Pudong financial district and nearby towns and villages will be completely locked down from early Monday (March 28) to Friday as citywide mass testing gets underway, the local government has told.
This is the second phase of the lockdown in China, the vast downtown area west of the Huangpu River which divides the city will then start its own 5-days lockdown on Friday.
Residents to stay home
Residents will be staying at home and deliveries will be left at checkpoints to ensure there is no contact with the outside world. All Offices and all businesses are applicable for this lockdown wherein essentials will not be closed and public transport suspended.
Many communities within Shanghai have already been locked down, with their members required to submit to multiple tests for COVID-19. Shanghai’s Disney theme park is among the businesses that have been closed earlier.
Over 56000 new coronavirus cases in China in March
China has so far recorded more than 56000 coronavirus infections this month, with a surging outbreak in the northeastern province of Jilin accounting for most of them.
But in response to China’s biggest outbreak since the pandemic broke out 2 years ago, Beijing has continued to enforce what it calls the ‘dynamic zero-Covid’ approach. The strategy fully focuses on eradicating community transmission of the virus as quickly as possible, sometimes by locking down entire cities. How To Treat Omicron Variant At Home
Meanwhile, China’s vaccination rate stands at around 87% and is considerably lower among older people. National data released earlier this month indicates that over 52 million people aged 60 and older have yet to be vaccinated with any Covid-19 vaccine. Booster rates are also low, with only 56.4% of people between 60-69 having received a booster shot, and 48.4%of people between 70-79 having received one. WHO is tracking Omicron in multiple sub-lineages, is it time to worry again?
