Shanghai, China, reports daily Covid levels that are at an all-time high
Key Takeaways:
- Shanghai's situation, according to a local official who talked to the Associated Press on Tuesday, is quite terrible.
- Outrage has been prompted by the death of a nurse who was denied access to her hospital owing to Covid restrictions, as well as the separation of young children from their parents.
After identifying 13,146 instances on Sunday, China recorded 16,412 Covid cases on Monday, the greatest number ever for a single day, raising concerns that the world's second-largest economy's revival might disrupt global supply chains.
The alarming increase in cases in China was fueled by a new high of 13,354 cases in Shanghai, a global financial powerhouse with a population of 25 million people struggling to contain the omicron form through a strict lockdown and mass testing. On Sunday, 9,006 cases were registered in Shanghai.
According to a local official who spoke to the Associated Press on Tuesday, Shanghai's situation is very bad.
The city was shut down in two phases over the last week, with the western half following the eastern half subjected to some of the country's most stringent restrictions and mass testing drives.
Over 10,000 health workers, including 2,000 military personnel, were dispatched by the Chinese government to assist in the testing of Shanghai citizens, some of whom had been confined for weeks.
Officials in Shanghai have turned public venues such as exhibition halls into vast isolation centers where persons with mild or no symptoms are monitored and isolated by temporary partitions.
However, while the city tries to control the infection, there have been concerns about difficulty obtaining food and other necessities, as well as criticism of the isolation centers' quality.
The death of a nurse who was denied entry to her hospital due to Covid restrictions, as well as the separation of young children from their parents, has sparked outrage.
Esther Zhao, a Shanghai resident, was forcibly removed from her two-year-old daughter after testing positive for Covid.
I'm anxious because I have no idea what my daughter is going through, "Through tears, she told Reuters.
Despite these and other efforts, the number of cases in Shanghai has risen from practically zero at the beginning of March. As per the Associated Press, more than 73,000 instances have been documented since then.
Although no casualties have been linked to the outbreak caused by the BA. 2, or stealth type of omicron, two deaths were reported from Jilin province in January, marking China's first Covid-related deaths in over a year.
Residents in other cities have been subjected to similar broad measures as the Xi Jinping government continues its 'zero Covid' approach, maintaining caseloads to a bare minimum until March.
However, like numerous other countries, including the United Kingdom, have discovered, the stealth omicron form is a considerably more difficult nut to crack.
New mutant variants of the coronavirus, such as XE, the recombinant variety (BA.1+BA.2) first found in the UK in January, are also causing concern. According to the World Health Organization, XE (and others like it, such as XD and XF) may be even more contagious than omicron.