Shanghai cautiously eases lockdown as deaths rise

SHANGHAI: Shanghai further eased its weeks-long Covid-19 lockdown on Wednesday despite mounting deaths and tens of thousands of new cases -- but some residents are furious that uneven enforcement is still leaving them trapped at home.

China’s largest city is inching towards reopening as businesses and residents grow increasingly desperate over closures and food shortages. Faced with the country’s worst virus outbreak in two years, Shanghai has confined most of its 25 million people to their homes since last month, doubling down on the Communist Party’s unrelenting zero-Covid approach.

But the surge, driven by the fast-spreading Omicron variant, has thwarted official efforts to avert a pandemic rebound, with more than 400,000 infections reported since March. City authorities confirmed seven Covid-19 deaths and more than 18,000 mostly asymptomatic new cases on Wednesday, while also announcing four million more people had been released from the strictest version of lockdown.