China Covid Crisis Grows With Cases Surging, New Sub-Strains

China’s Covid-19 situation is on a knife’s edge, with a lockdown of its financial hub intensified over the weekend amid a surge in new cases and reports of new sub-strains of the omicron variant emerging. The country, which managed to live much of the pandemic effectively virus free after quashing its initial outbreak in Wuhan, is experiencing its biggest jump in daily infections since 2020. Shanghai reported 9,006 cases for Sunday as the city prepares to test all its 25 million residents in another effort to weed out infections, amid accounts of un-reported deaths in a nursing home and ongoing food shortages. After announcing a partial lockdown a week ago, the uptick in cases now means Shanghai’s entire population is now under some form of movement restrictions.