SHANGHAI: The major financial hub of Shanghai reported 12 new COVID-19 related deaths on Apr 22, up from 11 the previous day, as frustrations among residents continued to boil over amid a harsh lockdown and strict censorship online.
The city, battling China’s biggest coronavirus outbreak so far, recorded 20,634 new local asymptomatic infections on Friday, rebounding from 15,698 a day earlier. Total new symptomatic cases reached 2,736, up from 1,931 on Apr 21, official data showed.
The patients who died had an average age of 88, the Shanghai government said. All had underlying health conditions, and none had been vaccinated.
“One strategy that needs immediate implementation is to increase rates of the booster vaccination dose to the elderly and other vulnerable groups and to see if mRNA vaccines can be used,” said Jaya Dantas, a public health expert at the Curtin School of Population Health in Australia, who is monitoring the Shanghai outbreak.
China has yet to introduce its own mRNA vaccines, and has chosen not to import those developed overseas.
In a study published by China’s Disease Prevention and Control Center on Friday, medical experts in the northeastern city of Jilin, the location of another recent outbreak, said China’s vaccines have been effective so far, though new emerging COVID-19 variants remained unpredictable.
They said “the data is strong enough to indicate the public significance of the strategy of full and booster vaccination, particularly for the elder population.”
Leave a Reply