Hong Kong, Europe Brief News – Residents in Shanghai launched a cry for help as they are running out of food, amid the city’s biggest-ever Covid outbreak.
Residents are confined to their homes, banned from leaving for even essential reasons such as grocery shopping.
Nearly 20,000 cases were reported on Thursday in China’s biggest city – another near-record high.
Officials have admitted the city is facing “difficulties” but say they are trying to improve this.
When more than 26 million Shanghai residents were sent into lockdown last week, restaurateur Cotton Ding’s heart sank.
“We have been fighting the pandemic since 2020, and for the past two years we’ve experienced a lot of changes,” Ding, who owns two restaurants located in historic colonial villas in the heart of the former French Concession, told Al Jazeera.
First Covid Death Reported
Last week, China reported its first two COVID-19 deaths in more than a year. The deaths, both in Jilin province, bring the country’s coronavirus death toll to 4,638 since the start of the pandemic.
Both fatalities occurred in elderly patients and were the result of their underlying conditions, Jiao Yahui, an official with the National Health Commission, told a news briefing on Saturday.
The deaths bring the country’s coronavirus death toll to 4,638.
The country where the coronavirus first emerged in late 2019 has largely curbed its spread thanks to a combination of border controls, lengthy quarantines and strict lockdowns targeted mostly on buildings where cases have been confirmed.
With the Omicron variant proving the biggest test yet of the country’s “zero-COVID” strategy, tens of millions of people across the country are living under stay-home orders.
