Shenzhen - the southern tech hub of 17.5 million people - is three days into a lockdown with many factories closed and supermarket shelves emptying, while China's largest city Shanghai is under a lattice of restrictions.Ĭity officials said at a Tuesday press conference that "it is not necessary to lock down Shanghai at present", instead opting for more "precise" measures. Health officials said over 8,200 Jilin residents have now been hospitalised, with the vast majority showing mild or no symptoms. Residents of several cities there including the provincial capital of Changchun - home to nine million people - are under stay-at-home orders. The northeastern province of Jilin has been worst-hit by Omicron with over 3,000 new cases on Tuesday, according to the National Health Commission. Health official Jiao Yahui said at a press briefing Tuesday that "the risk of severe illness is very high" for people in that age group. Health officials urged people over 60 to get vaccinated - including the third booster jab - as soon as possible.Īround 80 percent of people in that age group are double-vaccinated, according to official data - but Beijing is anxiously watching the situation over the border in Hong Kong, which now has the world's highest virus death rates due to low inoculation among its oldest residents. That approach, which pivots on hard localised lockdowns and has left China virtually cut off from the outside world for two years, appears stretched to the limit as Omicron finds its way into communities.Īt least 13 cities nationwide were fully locked down as of Tuesday, and several others had partial lockdowns, with some 15,000 infections reported nationwide in March. China reported 5,280 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, more than double the previous day's tally, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant spread across a country that has stuck tightly to a zero-Covid strategy.
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