China's Covid-19 lockdown in Shanghai: 26 million people confined to homes, 13,354 new cases reported

The COVID-19 outbreak in China's largest metropolis of Shanghai remains "extremely grim" amid an ongoing lockdown confining around 26 million people to their homes, a city official said Tuesday.

State media reported the director of Shanghai's working group on epidemic control said the outbreak in Shanghai was "still running at a high level" and the situation is "extremely grim."

Shanghai recorded another 13,354 cases on Monday — the vast majority of them asymptomatic — bringing the city's total to more than 73,000 since the latest wave of infections began last month.

No deaths have been attributed to the outbreak driven by the omicron BA.2 variant, which is much more infectious but also less lethal than the previous delta strain.

State broadcaster CCTV said Monday more areas of a makeshift hospital installed in the Shanghai convention center will open to receive people with mild or no symptoms.

China has sent more than 10,000 health workers to aid Shanghai in the outbreak, including 2,000 from the military, and is mass testing residents. Some have been locked down for weeks.

Most of eastern Shanghai, which was supposed to reopen last Friday, remained locked down along with the western half of the city.

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