Chinese Cities Face Rising Covid Outbreak Risks

Shanghai reported its first case of the new BA.5 sub-variant of Omicron on Sunday, after the highly infectious sub-variant was found in Xi'an and Beijing city last week, the 21st Century Business Herald reported citing the Shanghai’s health commission. The city added one high-risk area and 38 medium-risk areas on Sunday after more than 200 local positive cases were reported from July 3-9, the newspaper said. Another mega-city, Guangzhou, quickly carried out massive nucleic acid testing in five districts on Sunday, while Lanzhou, the largest city of Gansu province in Northwest China ordered one-week temporary control measures in four districts including home office and suspending offline entertainment and dine-in services starting Monday, the newspaper said.