Shanghai's new daily Covid-19 cases fell to the lowest in 15 days after three weeks of a citywide lockdown, prompting local authorities to shift their focus towards preventing the disease from spilling beyond the highest-risk areas and hospitals into the community.
The new focus, known as "societal zero-Covid," came at the end of a five-day standstill order that curbed the movement of medical staff, health officials, delivery couriers and community volunteers across the city's quarantine areas, hospitals and makeshift isolation wards. The standstill order is still in place.
"The focus of the [antivirus measures] needs to be highlighted as we chase the societal zero-Covid goal," said Chinese Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan, during a meeting with city officials on Wednesday. "We need to accelerate the process of transferring infected people to the quarantine sites."
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Shanghai added 18,495 new cases in the previous 24 hours, 2.1 per cent fewer than a day earlier, taking the city's accumulated cases to 426,000 since March 1, according to data released on Thursday. Symptomatic cases rose 5.6 per cent to 2,634, while eight patients died.
A community volunteer delivered supplies to a community of Pudong New Area in Shanghai on April 19, 2022. Photo: Xinhua. alt=A community volunteer delivered supplies to a community of Pudong New Area in Shanghai on April 19, 2022. Photo: Xinhua.>
The number of symptomatic patients, rising twice in four days, kept health authorities on their toes, prompting Sun to warn that the city would have to double down on its efforts to achieve societal zero-Covid at the highest-risk locked-down areas, particularly the quarantine centres.
A total 441 cases were detected outside the unguarded zones - designated hospitals, quarantine sites and high-risk residential compounds - in the previous 24 hours, according to data released on Thursday.
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