The city government extended late Thursday the lockdown already applied to the eastern districts, while the western parts of the city were closed as planned.
The new official guidelines indicated that many inhabitants of China's most populous city should stay at home as long as necessary to control the outbreak, with instructions not to leave their homes even to throw out their garbage or walk their dogs.
Public transport in most parts of the city has been suspended, while businesses considered non-essential, such as restaurants and shopping malls, have also had to close.
The lockdown, designed to stop an outbreak of the highly transmissible omicron variant, began on Monday and was originally supposed to last 10 days in total. Areas east of Shanghai's Huangpu River were to remain closed for five days, before reopening as western districts begin a five-day lockdown.
However, the city government said it would lift restrictions in eastern Shanghai in stages.
This means that most districts are now under lockdown that covers the office towers of the Lujiazui district — Chinese Wall Street — and factories, including Volkswagen's joint venture with SAIC Motor and the US automaker Tesla's plant.
China's outbreak is small compared to world standards. However, Shanghai, where there have been three out of four asymptomatic cases nationwide, has become a testbed for the national government's management of COVID: a “dynamic elimination” approach aimed at centrally analyzing, tracking and quarantining all positive cases.
Authorities said Friday that the daily infection count in the city fell for the second consecutive day: 4,144 new asymptomatic cases of local transmission and 358 symptomatic cases were recorded on Thursday, up from 5,298 and 355 the previous day.
However, some residents have expressed skepticism about the daily count, questioning the speed with which positive cases are recorded in the system. Shanghai publishes a daily list of addresses where cases have been detected, with some saying that its residential complexes were only included days after their neighbors tested positive, or not included at all.
The Shanghai city authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment on skepticism over the number of cases.
While in lockdown, residents will have to undergo rounds of nucleic acid testing (PCR) conducted by health personnel in protective suits. They are only allowed to leave their apartments for testing, which will take place inside or near their housing complexes, and authorities have asked residents to line up two meters apart to take the tests.
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