SHANGHAI –
The city of Shanghai has detected a case of COVID-19 involving a new Omicron BA.5.2.1 subvariant, an official said at a briefing on Sunday, signaling the complications China faces in keeping up with new mutations as it pursues its “ zero COVID’ policy.
The case, discovered in the Pudong financial district on July 8, was linked to a case from abroad, said Zhao Dandan, deputy director of the city’s health commission.
Shanghai, in eastern China, emerged from a lockdown that lasted about two months in early June, but continued to impose strict restrictions, locking down buildings and complexes as soon as new potential transmission lines emerged.
“Recently, our city has continued to report more locally transmitted positive cases (of COVID-19), and the risk of the epidemic spreading to the public remains very high,” warned Zhao of the Shanghai Health Commission.
He said residents in several major Shanghai neighborhoods will undergo two rounds of COVID tests from July 12 to 14 in an effort to contain potential new outbreaks.
The Omicron BA.5 variant, which is causing a new wave of overseas COVID-19 infections, was first detected in China on May 13 in a 37-year-old man who had flown to Shanghai from Uganda, according to the Chinese Center for Prevention and Control of diseases.
The BA.5 variant has been shown to have an accelerated transmission rate and improved immune escape ability, said Yuan Zhengang, a member of the city’s expert advisory group on COVID prevention, speaking at Sunday’s briefing.
But vaccination is still effective in preventing BA.5 from causing serious illness or death, he added.
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