Beijing (TIP): Shanghai reported seven more deaths due to Covid as the Chinese financial hub grapples with a record outbreak, taking the total death toll in the country to 4,648 with over 21,400 new cases, most of them from the city. Seven new deaths from Covid were reported on April 19 in Shanghai in addition to the three a day earlier, the first in the recent outbreak, taking the total death toll in the country due to coronavirus since it emerged in Wuhan in 2019 to 4,648, according to figures released by China‘s National Health Commission on Tuesday.

The late surge of Omicron variant of the coronavirus in China continues unabated as the country has reported 3,297 locally-transmitted confirmed Cobid cases, of which 3,084 were in Shanghai.

Apart from Shanghai, 18 other provincial-level regions on the mainland saw new local Covid cases, including 88 in the northeastern province of Jilin, the Commission report said. Shanghai also reported 17,332 locally-transmitted asymptomatic infections of Covid out of a total of 18,187 local asymptomatic carriers newly identified on the mainland, it said. Currently, China has 30,384 people undergoing treatment for Covid. Meanwhile, as the Omicron continued to spread, China’s Health Minister Ma Xiaowei on Monday pledged the toughest measures yet to prevent a major outbreak of Covid, ruling out any relaxations ahead of this year’s 20th Communist Party Congress.(PTI)