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China began locking down most of its largest city of Shanghai on Monday as a coronavirus outbreak surges and amid questions about the economic toll of the nation’s “zero-COVID” strategy, Associated Press reported.

Shanghai’s Pudong financial district and nearby areas will be locked down from early Monday to Friday as citywide mass testing gets underway, the local government said. In the second phase of the lockdown, the vast downtown area west of the Huangpu River that divides the city will then start its own five-day lockdown Friday. 

Residents will be required to stay home and deliveries will be left at checkpoints to ensure there is no contact with the outside world. Offices and all businesses not considered essential will be closed and public transport suspended. 

Already, many communities within the city of 26 million have been locked down, with their residents required to submit to multiple tests for COVID-19. And Shanghai’s Disney theme park is among the businesses that closed earlier, according to the Associated Press.

Shanghai detected another 3,500 cases of infection on Sunday, though all but 50 were people who tested positive but were not showing symptoms of COVID-19. China categorizes such cases separately from “confirmed cases” — those in people who are sick — leading to much lower totals in daily reports.

China has reported more than 56,000 infections nationwide this month, with a surge in the northeastern province of Jilin accounting for most of them. 

In response to its biggest outbreak in two years, China has continued to enforce what it calls the “dynamic zero-COVID” approach, calling that the most economical and effective prevention strategy against COVID-19, Associated Press reported.

That requires lockdowns and mass testing, with close contacts often being quarantined at home or in a central government facility. The strategy focuses on eradicating community transmission of the virus as quickly as possible, sometimes by locking down entire cities. 

While officials, including Communist Party leader Xi Jinping have encouraged more targeted measures, local officials tend to take a more extreme approach, concerned with being fired or otherwise punished over accusations of failing to prevent outbreaks. 

With China’s economic growth already slowing, the extreme measures are seen as worsening difficulties striking employment, consumption and even global supply chains.

While China’s vaccination rate is around 87%, it is considerably lower among older people. 

National data released earlier this month showed that over 52 million people aged 60 and older have yet to be vaccinated with any COVID-19 vaccine. Booster rates are also low, with only 56.4% of people between 60-69 having received a booster shot, and 48.4% of people between 70-79 having received one, according to the Associated Press.

Police have arrested two persons in possession of Rs 5.5 million undeclared money from Mahottari.

Police identified the arrestees as Dhiraj Kumar Yadav (20) and Ramesh Kumar Sahani of Aurahi Municipality-2.

DSP Prakash Bista, spokesperson at the District Police Office, Mahottari, said that the duo were apprehended during a security check in Aurahi Municipality-1 along the Ramgopalpur-Bardibas road section.

Police said that they are looking into the case.

Nepal reported 23 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 3, 780 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 15 returned positive. Likewise, 1, 442 people underwent antigen tests, of which eight were tested positive.

The Ministry said that no one died of virus in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that 215 infected people recovered from the disease.

As of today, there are 1, 558 active cases in the country.

At least four persons died when a commuter bus they were traveling in fell off a bridge over the Phuljor River in Lalbandi Municipality-17 of Sarlahi district along the East-West Highway on Sunday.

The bus (Na 4 Kha 8555) was heading towards Janakpur from Birgunj when the incident occurred, police said.

The identities of the deceased are yet to be established. The bodies have been taken to the District Hospital in Malangwa for postmortem.

The number of the people injured in the incident is yet to be ascertained. The injured are undergoing treatment in various health facilities in Lalbandi.

Police said that they are looking into the case.