China has sent more than 10,000 health workers from across the country to Shanghai, including 2,000 military medical staff, as it struggles to stamp out a rapidly spreading COVID-19 outbreak in China’s largest city.
The city was conducting a mass testing of its 25 million residents Monday as what was supposed to be a two-phase lockdown entered its second week. While many factories and financial firms have been able to keep operating by isolating their employees, concern was growing about the potential economic impact of an extended lockdown in China’s financial capital and a major shipping and manufacturing center.
The highly contagious omicron BA.2 form of the virus is testing China’s ability to maintain its zero-COVID approach, which aims to stop outbreaks from spreading by isolating everyone who tests positive, whether they have symptoms or not. Shanghai has converted an exhibition hall and other facilities into massive isolation centers where people with mild or no symptoms are housed in a sea of beds separated by temporary partitions.
READ ALSO: