China: Central COVID-19 quarantine site launched in Shanghai

China's largest city has launched a new central quarantine site to house the city's surging COVID-19 cases.

It is the giant convention center used for the Shanghai World Expo 2010 in the Pudong area which is under lockdown since Monday.

Three halls of Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center has been turned into a quarantine site, in which 6,000 beds are placed to house positive cases with mild symptoms and asymptomatic infections, according to local official media.

Another seven back-up designated hospitals and makeshift central quarantine sites have been established in the city, local authorities said.

Shanghai has entered the second day of the lockdown's first phase, which encompasses the Pudong financial district and adjacent areas on the east side of the Huangpu river that divides the center of finance, manufacturing and trade.

With public transport suspended and bridges and tunnels connecting the two sides of the city closed, usually bustling city streets — including the fabled riverside Bund in Puxi with its century-old historic buildings — were unusually quiet.

Shanghai recorded 4,477 new cases on Monday, all but 95 of them asymptomatic. Despite a nationwide surge, numbers of new COVID-19 deaths have remained low, with two more added on March 20 for a total of 4,638.

Authorities say the two-phase approach was designed to reduce disruptions, and unlike in past situations, definite end dates have been given for lockdown in Shanghai. Asymptomatic patients are being quarantined in facilities outside hospitals in order to free up limited medical resources.