Millions of people in China's financial hub were confined to their homes on Monday as the eastern half of Shanghai went into lockdown to curb the nation's biggest COVID outbreak.
But Shanghai has in recent weeks become China's COVID hotspot, and on Monday another record high was reported with 3,500 new confirmed cases. The government said the steps were being taken "to curb the spread of the epidemic, ensure the safety and health of the people" and root out infections "as soon as possible."China had largely kept the virus under control for the past two years through strict zero-tolerance measures that included the mass lockdowns of entire cities and provinces for even small numbers of cases.China has reported several thousand new daily cases for the past two weeks.