* Shanghai had 5 days of no cases outside quarantined areas
* Curbs and mass testing imposed in two districts
* City plans to lift lockdown in June
* More cities in China bring COVID under control
By Brenda Goh and Martin Quin Pollard
SHANGHAI/BEIJING, May 20 (Reuters) - Shanghai announced its first new COVID-19 cases outside quarantined areas in five days on Friday and imposed stricter curbs in two districts, but did not signal any change to the planned end of a prolonged city-wide lockdown on June 1.
The commercial hub of 25 million, in its seventh week of lockdown, has been slowly allowing more people to leave their homes in recent days, with many residential compounds issuing passes for brief walks or trips to the supermarket.
But in a sign of the challenges of China's "zero COVID" policy - at odds with the resumption of normal life in the rest of the world - authorities in Shanghai's Qingpu said on Friday it had sealed off and disinfected several places and tested more than 250,000 residents after discovering three cases.
Another district, Hongkou, on Friday afternoon ordered all shops to shut and residents to stay home until at least Sunday as it plans to carry out mass testing. It did not say why it had taken the action.
"Our district will carry out three consecutive rounds of PCR tests for everyone," authorities in Hongkou, home to more than 750,000 people, said on its official WeChat account.
"During this screening, all supermarkets, street-side shops must stop operations, everyone should not leave their homes."
Earlier on Friday, other Shanghai officials said steps in the gradual re-opening of Shanghai were going ahead, with suburban parks due to open from Sunday. Other parks could open from June if they met certain conditions but leisure facilities in parks would remain closed.
A plan to reopen four metro lines from Sunday also remained on track, the city government said.
Beijing, China's capital of 22 million people, has struggled to end an outbreak since late April despite significant curbs on movement, with many residents working from home and a range of shops and venues closed.
But its daily caseload has remained in the dozens rather than exploding like Shanghai's outbreak did. Beijing reported 62 new COVID infections for May 19, up from 55 a day earlier.
In the capital's biggest district Chaoyang, a football pitch popular with children was chained shut, covered with coils of barbed wire and signs saying “Temporarily closed during the epidemic”.
Nearby, young couples briefly perched together beside a canal on what is one of China’s unofficial Valentine's days, before security personnel approached with a loudspeaker with a message reminding people not to gather.