Shanghai’s Covid-19 death toll returns to zero while new cases decline a week before lockdown’s June 1 end

New cases fell for the fourth consecutive day, plunging by 19.4 per cent in the past 24 hours to 387, the lowest since March 19, Wednesday data shows

Cases showing symptoms slid by 24.1 per cent to 44 while the daily death toll fell to zero

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A Cartier store at an empty shopping centre on a rainy day amid Covid-19 lockdowns in Shanghai on May 24, 2022. Photo: AP

Published: 11:12am, 25 May 2022Updated: 1:06pm, 31 May 2022

Shanghai’s Covid-19 death toll returned to zero for the second time in six days, while new infections resumed their declining trend, days before the June 1 official end of the two-month lockdown of China’s commercial hub.

New cases fell for the fourth consecutive day, plunging by 19.4 per cent in the past 24 hours to 387, the lowest since March 19, according to data released on Wednesday. Cases showing symptoms slid by 24.1 per cent to 44 while the daily death toll fell to zero.

Wednesday was the first time in seven days that all three tallies turned negative, putting city authorities on track to end the lockdown and standstill orders in place across the city of 25 million residents since April 1. The clamp down in one of China’s largest population centres has pushed businesses to the brink of collapse, and strained global supply chains in everything from clothing and textiles to electronics and vehicles.

One community infection was found in a Jiading district in northern Shanghai in a “low-risk” area that had been infection-free for the past 14 days, underscoring the challenges in keeping the highly transmissible Omicron variant completely at bay. All 13 close contacts of the carrier tested negative, the city’s deputy health commissioner, Zhao Dandan, said on Wednesday.

A woman takes a PCR test on the new mobile testing booth made on the cargo motorcycle, amid the ongoing Covid-19 lockdown in Shanghai on 23 May 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE

“Overall, the situation [in curbing the pandemic] is improving, based on the falling infection numbers,” said Zhang Chaoyue, an analyst with Northeast Securities. “One infection in communities will not stop Shanghai from easing the virus control measures.”

Total deaths since the coronavirus outbreak started on March 1 stood at 586, or 0.09 per cent of the 625,800 people infected in Shanghai.

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