China`s Shanghai reports first Covid deaths since the start of lockdown

China`s Shanghai has reported its first death due to Covid-19 since the start of the lockdown, news agency ANI cited the city administration as saying.

BEIJING: China’s Shanghai has reported its first death due to Covid-19 ever since lockdown was re-imposed to contain the outbreak of the deadly virus in the city, news agency ANI cited the city administration as saying. According to the Shanghai Health Commission, three Covid-19 related deaths were reported on Sunday.

Those who died were aged between 89 and 91 and all had underlying diseases, the city administration said. The newly reported deaths are the first since two people passed away in mid-March in the northeastern province of Jilin. They were the first Covid fatalities in more than a year in China, where a strict zero-tolerance approach contained the virus until the more infectious delta and omicron variants emerged last year. 

Meanwhile, Shanghai has set a target to stop the spread of COVID-19 outside of quarantined areas by Wednesday, two people familiar with the matter said, which would allow the city to further ease its lockdown and start returning to normal life as public frustrations grow. The target will require officials to accelerate COVID testing and the transfer of positive cases to quarantine centres, according to a speech by a local Communist Party official dated Saturday, according to Reuters.

Ending community-level transmission has been a turning point for other Chinese localities that were locked down, such as Shenzhen city which last month reopened public transport and let businesses go back to work shortly after achieving that target.

Shanghai has become the epicentre of China`s largest outbreak since the virus was first identified in Wuhan in late 2019, and has recorded more than 320,000 COVID infections since early March when its surge began.

Frustrated Shanghai residents have taken to social media to vent their anger at local authorities over difficulties sourcing food, lost income, separated families and poor conditions at central quarantine centres. Tensions have on occasion erupted into public protests or scuffles with police.

The Chinese economy and global supply chains are also feeling pinched by shuttered factories and transport bottlenecks in many parts of China hit by COVID-19 curbs.

Shanghai`s new goal of "zero-COVID at the community level" by April 20 was communicated in recent days to the city`s Communist Party cadres and organisations such as schools, according to the sources, who declined to be named as the information was not public.

China`s definition of zero-COVID status at the community level means that no new cases emerge outside quarantined areas. A speech dated Saturday by the party secretary of the city`s Baoshan district described it as an order that had come as the city`s situation reached a "critical moment" with growing public anxiety and food supply pressures.

Shanghai started locking down areas east of the Huangpu river on March 28 and extended the lockdown citywide on April 1. While it eased movement curbs on some residents last week, most businesses remain shut and public transport is suspended.

Business leaders have been increasingly outspoken about the toll of the lockdowns on the Chinese economy, with automakers warning they could be forced to stop production completely if their suppliers in Shanghai and neighbouring areas could not resume work soon.

On Friday, China`s industry regulator said it had identified 666 companies in Shanghai in the semiconductor, automobile and medical sectors as priority firms that needed to resume work.

(With Reuters Inputs)