China on Monday reported deaths of three people from Covid-19 in Shanghai for the first time since the financial hub entered a lockdown in March following an Omicron-driven outbreak that’s confined millions to their homes and disrupted production and economic output.
The city of around 25 million residents have been logging more than 20,000 Covid-19 cases daily for days but until Monday’s announcement authorities had maintained no one had died of the infection.
A brief statement from the city’s health authorities said on Monday that the three who died on Sunday were aged between 89 and 91, two women and one man, and were not vaccinated.
“On Sunday, three deaths from Covid-19 were reported in Shanghai. The three individuals included two females and one male, with their ages ranging from 89 to 91. The three suffered from comorbidities including coronary heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure,” according to the Shanghai municipal health commission.
“They died after all-out rescue efforts,” the commission said.
The three deaths took the overall Covid-19-related deaths on the mainland to 4,641, an official toll much smaller than many other countries.
The city reported 19,831 new daily asymptomatic Covid-19 cases on April 17, down from 21,582 on the previous day.
New symptomatic Covid-19 cases stood at 2,417, down from 3,238 for April 16.
City authorities said on Monday that millions of more nucleic acid and antigen tests will be carried out across Shanghai this week to weed out fresh infections.
The city has conducted more than 200 million nucleic acid tests since March 10 in a bid to curb the outbreak, China’s biggest Covid-19 outbreak since the coronavirus was first discovered in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.
Shanghai residents are currently under a three-tier lockdown with those in “control” areas not allowed to come out of their homes.
Authorities in Shanghai introduced the three-tier disease control system last week, which allowed residents in areas where no cases have been reported for 14 days to leave their homes – but remain within their compounds and neighbourhood – as long as they follow health protocols.
The strict lockdown measures were eased slightly following an outcry over shortages of food, medicine and daily necessities.
Overall, a total of 20,639 local asymptomatic carriers were newly identified on the mainland.
Apart from Shanghai, 15 other provincial-level regions on the mainland saw new local Covid-19 cases, including 166 in the northeastern province of Jilin.