Shanghai Covid-19 lesson learned as southern Chinese Guangdong province swings into action
- Tech hub Shenzhen and factory base Guangzhou launch mass screenings and tighten travel restrictions to keep virus at bay
- Shanghai continues to battle record Covid-19 numbers, with total cases topping 250,000
This comes as China battles one of its worst local outbreaks since the pandemic began in early 2020, as the sprawling eastern financial hub of Shanghai enters a third week under lockdown, with residents now complaining of food shortages.
Coronavirus cases in the city of 25 million hit a new high for the 10th straight day on Monday, with total cases in the current outbreak topping 250,000.
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Shanghai’s citywide Covid-19 lockdown spurs race to stockpile food across China
In Guangdong’s tech hub Shenzhen, some areas launched three rounds of mass testing from Saturday to Monday after one local case was found on Friday, breaking a five-day run of zero cases.
The new patient, a seven-year-old boy, had not left Shenzhen or been to any other medium or high-risk areas in China in the past 14 days, the Shenzhen government said. His residential compound has been placed under pandemic restrictions and investigations are under way to track the origin of the infection.
Shenzhen residents in areas including the central district of Futian, meanwhile, have received messages asking them to comply with screenings at their earliest convenience.
“If you do not do a nucleic acid test in a timely manner, your health code might turn yellow,” one such message read.
