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BEIJING (AFP) – Hundreds of flights at one of China’s busiest airports were canceled on Tuesday (November 24) as Shanghai raced to control a local coronavirus outbreak.
Health officials have examined thousands of employees at Pudong International Airport since a small cluster of Covid-19 cases in the city was linked to various cargo handlers.
China, where the virus first appeared late last year, has largely controlled the pandemic through travel restrictions and closures, but is now battling a series of national outbreaks in different cities.
Shanghai has reported seven local airport-related infections this month, with most of the cases found in recent days.
The outbreak has sparked plans to give high-risk workers at the travel hub an experimental vaccine that China has already been providing to state employees, international students and essential workers heading abroad since July.
On Tuesday, figures from data services company VariFlight showed that more than 500 flights from Pudong airport had been canceled, nearly half of the day’s scheduled flights.
Nearly half of the scheduled inbound flights were also canceled.
More than 17,700 people had been cleaned Monday morning on the trip to test the airport cargo staff, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Almost half of all scheduled flights were also canceled at Tianjin International Airport, a northern port city that is also testing around 2.6 million people to try to control a local group.
Tianjin reported five local cases on Saturday and another on Tuesday.
China has been implementing mass screening campaigns in response to the emergence of local Covid-19 cases, in some cases collecting test samples from entire districts or cities.
In recent days, authorities have shifted their focus to imported frozen foods and other inbound shipments, which have been blamed for the resurgence of local infections.
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