Life in a city under lockdown as Shanghai's covid cases hit new peak

Long lines of COVID-19 tests, empty streets and closed storefronts: a now familiar sight inShanghaias the financial hub reported over 27,000 coronavirus cases on Thursday (April 14).

Shanghaiis battling China's worst covid outbreak since the virus first emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, with the city's 25 million residents remaining largely under lockdown, though restrictions were partially eased in some areas this week. However, while some people were allowed out on Tuesday (April 12), there was still confusion about how freely they could move, with many awaiting permission from their residential committees.

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On Thursday,Shanghaireported a record 2,573 symptomatic cases for the previous day, up from 1,189 a day earlier, while asymptomatic cases reached 25,146, up from 25,141.

A city official said that cases continued to rise despite the lockdown in part because of a backlog of test results and because of ongoing transmission among family members.