3 Deaths Due To Covid During Lockdown In Shanghai

Shanghai has worked under a patchwork of lockdown restrictions this year

On Monday, Shanghai reported the first Covid deaths since the start of its weeks-long lockdown, three elderly people with underlying conditions, the city government said.

"The three people deteriorated into severe cases after going into hospital, and died after all efforts to revive them proved just ineffective," the city said on social media.

The people who died included two women aged 89 and 91, and a 91-year-old man, the city said, adding that they all had a variety of underlying health complaints such as coronary heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Shanghai, China's largest city, has stewed under a patchwork of lockdown restrictions this year amid the country's worst Covid-19 outbreak since the start of the pandemic.

The eastern business hub posted 22,248 new domestic cases on Monday, of which 2,417 were symptomatic, according to the municipal health commission Shanghai.

China, where the coronavirus was first detected in late 2019, has largely slowed new cases to a trickle thanks to a zero-Covid policy of mass testing, travel restrictions and targeted lockdowns as precautions.

But the world's most populous nation has recently struggled to contain outbreaks in multiple regions, largely driven by the fast-spreading Omicron variant.

The country last reported new Covid deaths on March 19, two people in the north-eastern province of Jilin, the first such deaths in more than a year.

The lockdown and repeated testing of Shanghai’s 25 million residents hasn’t yet stopped infections, with more than 22,000 cases reported on Sunday.

Shanghai is the epicenter of China’s worst Covid outbreak since Wuhan more than two years ago. But most people infected with the virus have few symptoms, according to the government, and the reported number of severely ill patients remains negligible.

The omicron variant has surged through the population, infecting everyone from a newborn who was just 10 days old to someone nearing 100, according to the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission.