Shanghai launches classified management of city areas to contain COVID-19 spread

Shanghai has divided the whole city into areas belonging to three categories as part of targeted efforts to overcome a local COVID-19 resurgence.

It has designated 7,624 closed-off management areas, 2,460 restrictive control areas and 7,565 prevention areas, according to a press conference held on Monday.

The closed-off management areas refer to residential communities, villages, work units, or venues with COVID-19 infections reported in the past seven days. People in these areas will undergo seven days of closed-off management plus seven days of health monitoring at home. Door-to-door services will be provided where needed.

The restrictive control areas are those without reported infections in the past seven days, within which people will observe seven days of health monitoring at home.

People who have an urgent need to go to the hospital, among other emergencies, in the aforementioned two areas can exit their respective areas for these purposes, with their movements under closed-loop management.

Those areas without reported infections over the past 14 days are labeled as prevention areas, where people are allowed in principle to move inside their respective sub-district or town with strict restrictions on the scale of gathering, but are banned from entering the other two types of areas.

The classification of each area can be adjusted in response to any changes in the situation within, according to the press conference.

Shanghai on Sunday registered 914 confirmed local COVID-19 cases and 25,173 asymptomatic infections, according to the National Health Commission.