Health authorities instruct Shanghai residents to get tested for COVID-19

Shanghai residents who missed their COVID-19 tests during the current wave of grid-screenings are required to complete at least one test by 6 pm Friday. Those who fail to do so will receive a yellow health QR code, according to local health authorities.

Residents can do their tests before 6 pm at hospitals, health institutions or test stations in their neighborhoods, Wu Jinglei, director of municipal health commission, said at a briefing on Friday.

Shanghai has been conducting grid-screening since March 16.

The daily tally of new local infections has been on the rise since the current outbreak in the city started on March 1, with a total of more than 7,000 new infections reported by Friday. On Thursday alone, the city reported 1,609 new infections, 1,580 of which are asymptomatic, according to the municipal health commission.

Zhang Wenhong, head of the infectious disease department at Huashan Hospital, said at the news briefing on Friday that the city's grid screening strategy has been effective as the percentage of new infections among people not in quarantined areas has decreased to about 10 percent. 

"If the percentage continues to drop, the turning point is sure to arrive," Zhang said. "The (grid-screening) strategy works the best with the cooperation of the city's residents. As Shanghai speeds up its testing speed, everyone will get the screening test eventually. It's up to every resident to cooperate in the process."

Zhang said the turning point will arrive once the reproductive number (R0) of the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron is brought down to below 1. Without intervention, the R0 of BA.2 , which has been cited as the major cause of the current outbreak in Shanghai, is estimated to be close to 10, Zhang added.