Sticking To Tough Covid Curbs Will Bring Victory: Xi

President Xi Jinping has said China must stick to its strict "dynamic Covid clearance" policy as the global pandemic remains very serious, and promised those enduring lockdowns that persistence will win out in the end.

The country's zero-Covid policy has seen millions return to lockdowns this year following outbreaks of the fast-spreading Omicron variant.

"We must persist in putting people above all, life above all ... We must adhere to scientific precision, to dynamic zero-Covid," Xi said during a visit to the southern island of Hainan on Wednesday, state media reported.

"The current global pandemic is still very serious, and we cannot relax the prevention and control work. Persistence is victory."

The epicentre of the mainland’s battle with Covid is now the financial hub of Shanghai, where most of the city’s 25 million residents are under lockdown.

Shanghai authorities said on Thursday the daily tally of new asymptomatic cases had slightly risen again, to 25,146, compared with 25,141 a day earlier. Symptomatic cases rose to 2,573 from 1,189.

A city official said cases in Shanghai continued to rise despite the lockdown in part because of a backlog in test results and also because transmission between family members was still going on.

Authorities also gave no sign of a change in their containment strategy, where all infected people – including those with asymptomatic or very mild cases – must go into quarantine at centralised facilities.

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had on Wednesday published a guide on home quarantining on its social media page.

Other parts of the mainland logged 1,598 local infections on Wednesday, with Jilin accounting for 999 of them. Guangdong recorded 68 new cases, 21 of which were asymptomatic. (RTHK/Reuters)