Shanghai Reports First Deaths from Omicron Outbreak
Shanghai has announced its first deaths since the omicron version of the coronavirus broke out in the Chinese city in March. The three elderly people who died Sunday all had underlying conditions and were unvaccinated, according to officials.
“After entering hospital, their conditions grew worse and they died after attempts to save them were unsuccessful,” Shanghai Health Commission inspector Wu Ganyu said.
Shanghai’s low death rate from the current outbreak has been questioned by international health officials.
Shanghai’s 26 million residents have been ordered to remain in their homes since early April in response to the surge of new COVID-19 infections largely driven by the highly contagious omicron variant.
The breakthrough of new COVID-19 cases in China is happening despite Beijing’s official “zero COVID” strategy that aims to completely eliminate coronavirus outbreaks across the mainland.
The COVID outbreak in Shanghai has begun pitting COVID-negative people against COVID-positive residents, according to news reports.
The Reuters news agency reports that some COVID test results have ended up on apartment buildings’ WeChat groups.
A foreign resident had trouble uploading his tests results to his health app and his apartment building’s management attempted to block his family’s food deliveries unless he shared his results with his fellow apartment dwellers, a privacy violation.
In some cases, people who had been placed in quarantine were not able to gain access to their apartments once released from quarantine, a violation of state guidelines.
The Associated Press reports that one Shanghai quarantine center has 50,000 cots and no hot water for showers.
Meanwhile, India’s health ministry said Monday that its daily COVID cases nearly doubled from Sunday with 1,150 cases to Monday with 2,183.
The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported Monday that it has recorded more than 504 million COVID cases globally and 6.2 million deaths. The center said more than 11 billion vaccines have been administered.
