2 districts report no new COVID cases in Shanghai

SHANGHAI, China, April 21 ------ Shanghai reported on Wednesday, April 20, no new cases of COVID-19 outside quarantined areas in two districts, raising hopes that the tide was turning in its battle against the epidemic, with some factories around the city making a gradual return to work. Stringent lockdown measures enforced after the outbreak began in early March have left the city’s 25 million people struggling with the loss of income, irregular food supplies, separation of families and poor quarantine conditions.

On Wednesday, Shanghai health official Wu Qianyu gave them an encouraging situation report during a daily news conference. “The city’s epidemic situation in recent days has shown a downward trend, the number of streets and towns reporting more than 100 daily cases has fallen consecutively for three days, community spread has been effectively curbed,” she said.

Shanghai reported 16,407 new local asymptomatic coronavirus cases for April 19, down from 17,332 on the previous day. Symptomatic cases stood at 2,494, down from 3,084. City authorities said seven people infected with COVID-19 died on Tuesday, the same number as on Monday. Shanghai has reported 17 deaths since the latest outbreak began, all in the past three days. Numerous residents, however, have said that a family member had died after contracting COVID-19 since early March, but cases had not been included in official statistics, raising doubts over their accuracy.

Sources told Reuters that Shanghai aims to stop the spread of COVID-19 outside quarantined areas by Wednesday. There were 390 new cases outside quarantined areas on Tuesday, down from 550 on Monday. And two of the city’s 16 districts reported no new cases outside quarantined areas. Other cities that have been under lockdown began easing curbs once they halted transmission outside of quarantined areas.

Source: rappler.com