The director of Shanghai’s epidemiological task force, Zhou Hongwei, was quoted by state media as saying that the level of the virus outbreak in the city “remains high. The situation is very grim.”
China has sent more than 10,000 health workers from all over the country to help the city, including 2,000 soldiers, and is conducting mass tests for residents, some of whom have been under lockdown for weeks.
Most of eastern Shanghai, which was supposed to reopen last Friday, remains closed along with the western half of the city.
And Shanghai recorded another 13,354 cases on Monday, the vast majority of them asymptomatic, bringing the total number of infections in the city to more than 73,000 since the last wave of infections began last month.
No deaths were recorded in the current wave caused by the omicron PA2 variant, which is both more contagious and less lethal than the previous delta strain.
The virus continues to spread separately in Jilin Province, northeast China, and the capital, Beijing, has witnessed 9 additional cases, only one of which is asymptomatic, while workers have closed an entire shopping center in the city where an infection was discovered.
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