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Shanghai will move into a normalised epidemic-control phase from Wednesday and will allow malls and shops to reopen and people in "low-risk" areas to return to work, city officials said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

Railways will also resume normal operations and the number of domestic flights to the city will increase, vice mayor Zong Ming told an online press conference, adding that they will also look to adjust passenger load factors. 

Public venues, however, will still need to cap people flows at 75% of capacity and people will need to show a negative PCR test taken within the last 72 hours to enter, according to Reuters.

The city announced an end to its two-month lockdown on Monday.

Chandrapala Weerasuriya can’t remember when he last took his medication. The 67-year-old retired businessman, living in Sri Lanka’s Gampaha district, has always relied on a drug to keep at bay his hereditary nervous condition, which makes him dizzy and unable to walk, The Guardian reported.

But since his prescription recently ran out, he cannot get another supply. The drug is simply not available in Sri Lanka any more.

“I am afraid that I might become paralysed because there is no one to care for us,” he said fretfully. “My wife and I do everything alone. We split the household chores and manage it between ourselves. My wife has a knee problem and she can barely walk.”

Sri Lanka’s financial crisis, its worst since independence, is swiftly becoming an alarming health crisis. The government’s coffers have fallen to their lowest levels on record and last week the country was forced to default on its international loans for the first time in its history. Without crucial foreign currency, Sri Lanka has been unable to import the essentials: food, fuel – and medicine.

Sri Lanka imports more than 80% of its medical supplies. Now almost 200 medical items are in shortage, including 76 essential, life-saving drugs, from blood-thinners for heart attack and stroke patients to antibiotics, rabies vaccines and cancer chemotherapy drugs. Essential surgical equipment and anaesthesia is running out so fast that the decision was made this week for only emergency surgeries, mostly heart and cancer patients, to go ahead. All routine surgeries – anything from hernias to swollen appendixes – have been put on hold. Some government hospitals have been instructed to only admit emergency patients, according to The Guardian.

“Ultimately, people are definitely going to die,” said a doctor in Colombo who had been told not to speak to the media.

She described how the hospital was so low on certain drugs they had to instruct families of patients to go out to pharmacies and try to buy it themselves. “There have been incidents where the family members have gone around looking for drugs and by the time they’ve come back with the drug, it’s been too late and the patient has died,” she said.

The doctor said the shortages were getting worse. “I’m worried about pregnant mothers because soon I don’t know whether we will have enough drugs to perform cesarian sections,” she said.

Cancer drugs, which are notoriously expensive to import, have been particularly badly hit by shortages in recent weeks, and the responsibility to source them has fallen on the heads of oncologists themselves. They have been putting out global appeals for donations, and writing letters to private supporters, organisations and governments, to ensure cancer treatments are not delayed.

Dr Buddhika Somawardana, an oncologist at Colombo’s largest cancer hospital, described the “great stress” he and other doctors were under as essential cancer drugs began to run out over a month ago or stopped being available at all, The Guardian reported.

“One of the drugs we give patients undergoing chemotherapy, which boosts their blood count so they aren’t liable to serious infections, is not available any more,” he said. “So far, we managed to get donation of 80,000 vials. But that will not last very long.”

He added: “Somehow, thanks to donations, we have mostly been managing without any huge issues. But we had to postpone some chemotherapy, which may have detrimental effects on the cancer outcome.”

Somawardana said the crisis was placing a huge “financial and psychological burden” on cancer patients, who were having to source and pay vast sums for their own medicines to continue their treatment, previously free and easily accessibly in hospitals under Sri Lanka’s lauded universal healthcare system.

Cancer doctors too were feeling the pressure of having to be the ones both to appeal for global drug donations, as well as treat their patients. “I didn’t know how long we will be able to go on like this,” he said.

Ruvaiz Haniffa, a doctor in Colombo, expressed his frustration that doctors had “seen this coming as early as January” but little had been done by authorities to set up backup plans to ensure no medicines ran short, even as the country’s foreign reserves began to deplete to worryingly low levels, according to The Guardian.

Chandrapala Weerasuriya can’t remember when he last took his medication. The 67-year-old retired businessman, living in Sri Lanka’s Gampaha district, has always relied on a drug to keep at bay his hereditary nervous condition, which makes him dizzy and unable to walk.

But since his prescription recently ran out, he cannot get another supply. The drug is simply not available in Sri Lanka any more.

“I am afraid that I might become paralysed because there is no one to care for us,” he said fretfully. “My wife and I do everything alone. We split the household chores and manage it between ourselves. My wife has a knee problem and she can barely walk.”

Sri Lanka’s financial crisis, its worst since independence, is swiftly becoming an alarming health crisis. The government’s coffers have fallen to their lowest levels on record and last week the country was forced to default on its international loans for the first time in its history. Without crucial foreign currency, Sri Lanka has been unable to import the essentials: food, fuel – and medicine.

Sri Lanka imports more than 80% of its medical supplies. Now almost 200 medical items are in shortage, including 76 essential, life-saving drugs, from blood-thinners for heart attack and stroke patients to antibiotics, rabies vaccines and cancer chemotherapy drugs. Essential surgical equipment and anaesthesia is running out so fast that the decision was made this week for only emergency surgeries, mostly heart and cancer patients, to go ahead. All routine surgeries – anything from hernias to swollen appendixes – have been put on hold. Some government hospitals have been instructed to only admit emergency patients.

“Ultimately, people are definitely going to die,” said a doctor in Colombo who had been told not to speak to the media.

She described how the hospital was so low on certain drugs they had to instruct families of patients to go out to pharmacies and try to buy it themselves. “There have been incidents where the family members have gone around looking for drugs and by the time they’ve come back with the drug, it’s been too late and the patient has died,” she said.

The doctor said the shortages were getting worse. “I’m worried about pregnant mothers because soon I don’t know whether we will have enough drugs to perform cesarian sections,” she said.

Cancer drugs, which are notoriously expensive to import, have been particularly badly hit by shortages in recent weeks, and the responsibility to source them has fallen on the heads of oncologists themselves. They have been putting out global appeals for donations, and writing letters to private supporters, organisations and governments, to ensure cancer treatments are not delayed.

Dr Buddhika Somawardana, an oncologist at Colombo’s largest cancer hospital, described the “great stress” he and other doctors were under as essential cancer drugs began to run out over a month ago or stopped being available at all.

“One of the drugs we give patients undergoing chemotherapy, which boosts their blood count so they aren’t liable to serious infections, is not available any more,” he said. “So far, we managed to get donation of 80,000 vials. But that will not last very long.”

He added: “Somehow, thanks to donations, we have mostly been managing without any huge issues. But we had to postpone some chemotherapy, which may have detrimental effects on the cancer outcome.”

Somawardana said the crisis was placing a huge “financial and psychological burden” on cancer patients, who were having to source and pay vast sums for their own medicines to continue their treatment, previously free and easily accessibly in hospitals under Sri Lanka’s lauded universal healthcare system.

Cancer doctors too were feeling the pressure of having to be the ones both to appeal for global drug donations, as well as treat their patients. “I didn’t know how long we will be able to go on like this,” he said.

Ruvaiz Haniffa, a doctor in Colombo, expressed his frustration that doctors had “seen this coming as early as January” but little had been done by authorities to set up backup plans to ensure no medicines ran short, even as the country’s foreign reserves began to deplete to worryingly low levels.

Canada should introduce a total ban on the buying and selling of all handguns, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said, BBC reported.

His government is proposing a new law that would freeze private ownership of all short-barrelled firearms.

The legislation would not ban the ownership of handguns outright - but would make it illegal to buy them. 

Mr Trudeau's proposal comes days after a deadly shooting at a Texas primary school, in the neighbouring US, killed 21 people.

The bill. which was presented to Canada's parliament on Monday, makes it impossible to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in the country.

"Other than using firearms for sport shooting and hunting, there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives," Mr Trudeau told reporters.

"As we see gun violence continue to rise, it is our duty to keep taking action," he said.

It marks the most ambitious attempt yet by his government to restrict access to firearms.

The bill would also require rifle magazines to be reconfigured so they can hold no more than five rounds at a time.

And it would take away firearms licences from gun owners involved in domestic violence or criminal harassment.

Unlike in the US, gun ownership is not enshrined in Canada's constitution, but firearms are still popular, especially in rural parts of the country, BBC reported.

Canada already has stricter rules on gun ownership than its southern neighbour and records fewer firearm incidents every year.

For example, all guns must be kept locked and unloaded and anyone wishing to buy a firearm must undergo extensive background checks.

But there have been calls in recent years to tighten gun legislation there even further, especially following a number of deadly shootings.

In April 2020, a gunman posing as a police officer killed 22 people during a shooting spree in Nova Scotia - the deadliest in Canada's history.

Within days, Mr Trudeau announced an immediate ban on 1,500 different kinds of military-grade and assault-style weapons.

The new bill would effectively limit the number of legally-owned handguns in Canada to present levels, according to BBC.