Transport locked down in China's Shanghai as asymptomatic COVID cases surge

By Trend

China's financial hub of Shanghai launched a planned two-stage lockdown of the city of 26 million people on Monday, closing bridges and tunnels, and restricting highway traffic in a scramble to contain surging local COVID-19 cases, Trend reports citing Reuters.

The snap lockdown, announced by Shanghai's city government on Sunday, will split the city in two roughly along the Huangpu River for nine days to allow for "staggered" testing. It is the biggest COVID-related disruption to hit the city so far.

The announcement also marks a turnaround for the local government, which last week expressly denied Shanghai would be locked down as it pursued a more piecemeal "slicing and gridding" approach to try to prevent infections from spreading. read more

Wu Fan, a member of Shanghai's expert COVID team, told a briefing on Monday recent mass testing had found "large scale" infections throughout the city, triggering a stronger response.

"Containing the large scale outbreak in our city is very important because once infected people are put under control, we have blocked transmission," she said, adding that testing would be carried out until all hidden risks are eliminated.

A record 3,450 asymptomatic COVID cases were reported in Shanghai on Sunday, accounting for nearly 70% of the nationwide total, along with 50 symptomatic cases, the city government said on Monday.