Shanghai And Guanzhou COVID-19 Infections Soar

As the country attempts to curb a countrywide outbreak ranging from Shanghai in the southeast to the northern regions, another major Chinese city has strengthened pandemic regulations.

Guangzhou, in China's south, shut down in-person classes at elementary and middle schools on Monday, moving classes to the internet.

According to a local notification made over the weekend, the initiatives will last at least a week. Locals should only leave the city if absolutely required, and they must have a negative virus test over the last 48 hours to do so.

Guangzhou, the hub of the manufacturing-heavy province of Guangdong, reported 27 new cases on Sunday, including nine asymptomatic individuals. The National Health Commission said this is up from a total of 11 cases a day before.

On Sunday, Shanghai reported a new peak for the total number of cases: 914 with symptoms and 25,173 without.

Authorities reported 1,006 cases with symptoms and 23,937 asymptomatic cases on Saturday. The majority of mainland China's new COVID-19 cases come from the southern city.

Around a week after a two-part closure was meant to end, Shanghai is still in lockdown, with most residents having to remain in their flats and order food through delivery.

On March 12, Shanghai began converting primary and middle schools to online classes. On March 28, a two-stage lockdown was implemented in the name of mass virus screening.

Late last week, all 11 districts of Guangzhou city started a new round of public testing. The city said on Saturday that it is converting an expo center into a makeshift facility.

The most recent wave of cases is caused by the highly transmissible omicron form, and it is the most severe Covid outbreak on the mainland since the pandemic began in early 2020.

The northern province of Jilin, which is a hub of many automobile industries, has seen a leveling out of Covid cases after a rise in late February.

In Jilin, the number of daily new infections has dropped from about 1,000 to 2,000 per day, including asymptomatic patients, to a few hundred per day.

There were no additional domestic infection cases reported in Beijing, China's capital, on Sunday.

Hebei, the neighboring province, reported 100 additional cases, all of which were asymptomatic.

Other major cities around the country, including Xi'an and Chengdu in central China, as well as Suzhou and Nanjing near the coast, each recorded fewer than ten new patients exhibiting symptoms on Sunday.