tirsdag 19. april 2022

Shanghai reports first official Covid deaths in weeks-long lockdown

Shanghai reported three Covid-19 deaths Monday, the first officially announced fatalities from a raging Omicron outbreak that has infected hundreds of thousands of people despite a government-enforced city-wide lockdown. Three elderly people aged between 89 and 91 died from Covid on Sunday, after their condition deteriorated in hospital, the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission said in a statement Monday. All three were unvaccinated and had underlying health conditions such as coronary heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure, according to officials.

On Tuesday, Shanghai's health commission reported another seven Covid deaths, aged between 60 and 101 and all had underlying ailments. "The immediate cause of death is (their) underlying diseases," the commission said in a statement.

The city reported 3,084 symptomatic cases and 17,332 asymptomatic infections Tuesday, according to the statement. The death toll appears strikingly low against the vast number of cases -- since March 1, more than 390,000 people in Shanghai have been infected, and by the official count, no one had died of Covid until Sunday.