Coronavirus: hundreds of flights cancelled at busy Shanghai airport as China tackles local outbreak
- City has reported seven local infections linked to the airport this month, with most cases found in the past few days
- Chinese authorities have recently focused on imported frozen food and other inbound shipments that have been blamed for infections
Health officials have tested thousands of staff at Pudong International Airport since a small cluster of Covid-19 cases in the city was linked to several cargo handlers.
China – where the virus was first reported late last year – has largely brought the pandemic under control through travel restrictions and lockdowns but it is now battling a number of domestic outbreaks in different cities.
Shanghai has reported seven local infections linked to the airport this month, with most cases found in the past few days.
The outbreak has sparked plans to give high-risk workers at the travel hub an experimental vaccine that China has already been giving state employees, international students and essential workers heading abroad since July.
On Tuesday, figures from data services firm VariFlight showed that more than 500 flights out of Pudong airport had been called off – nearly half the day’s scheduled flights.
Almost half of the scheduled inbound flights were also cancelled.