The city of Shanghai detected a case of Covid-19 related to a new subvariant of Omicron, BA.5.2.1an official said at a briefing on Sunday, underscoring the complications facing the China’s “zero COVID” policy.
The case, detected in the Pudong financial district on July 8, was related to one from abroad, said Zhao Dandan, deputy director of the city’s health commission.
Shanghai, in the east of Chinaemerged from a lockdown that lasted about two months in early June, but has continued to impose harsh restrictions, closing buildings and venues as new potential transmission chains emerge.
“Our city has continued to report more positive cases of local transmission (of Covid-19) recently, and the risk of the epidemic spreading throughout society remains very high,” Zhao of the Shanghai health commission warned.
Zhao said that residents of several of Shanghai’s major districts would undergo two rounds of Covid tests, from July 12 to 14, to try to control possible new outbreaks.
the subvariant Omicron BA.5which is fueling a new wave of infections from Covid-19 abroad, it was first discovered in China on May 13 in a 37-year-old male patient who had flown to Shanghai from Uganda, according to the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
It has been shown that the subvariant BA.5 it has fast transmission rate and better immune escape ability, said Yuan Zhengan, a member of the city’s expert advisory group on Covid-19 prevention, speaking at Sunday’s briefing.
However, the vaccination is still effective in preventing the BA.5 cause serious illness or death, he added.
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