The city of Shanghai has discovered 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 “zero-COVID.” her. policy. The case, found in Pudong’s financial district on July 8, was linked to a case from overseas, said Zhao Dandan, vice chairman of the city’s health commission. Shanghai, in eastern China, emerged from a lockdown that lasted about two months in early June but has continued to impose tough restrictions, locking down buildings and compounds as new potential chains of transmission emerge. “Our city has recently continued to report more locally transmitted positive cases (COVID-19), and the risk of the epidemic spreading to society remains very high,” warned Zhao of the Shanghai Health Commission. He said residents in several major districts of Shanghai will undergo two rounds of tests for COVID from July 12 to 14 in an effort to control possible new cases. The Omicron BA.5 variant, which is driving a new wave of overseas COVID-19 infections, was first discovered in China on May 13 in a 37-year-old male patient who had flown to Shanghai from Uganda, according to the China Center for Prevention and disease control. The BA.5 variant has been shown to have an accelerated transmission rate and improved immune evasion, said Yuan Zhengan, a member of the city’s expert advisory group on COVID prevention, speaking at Sunday’s briefing. However, vaccination is still effective in preventing BA.5 from causing serious illness or death, he added.
