Shanghai officials will begin relaxing lockdown restrictions in some areas on Monday amid reports of more than 25,000 new Covid cases in the country's most populated city and financial hub.

The almost 26 million-person metropolis will allow "appropriate activity" in select areas with no positive cases for at least two weeks. Residents of these areas are not permitted to travel to regions that remain under strict lockdown.

"Each district will announce the specific names of the initial batch [of communities]," Gu said during a news conference. It is unknown how many residents will have lockdowns lifted immediately.

On Monday, Shanghai recorded 914 symptomatic cases and 25,173 asymptomatic cases in the preceding 24 hours. Authorities reported 1,006 instances with symptoms on Saturday and 23,937 without.

Shanghai's frustration level has continued to rise. Numerous individuals' terrible stories of being unable to get medical resources on time have been shared online. Residents expressed calls for assistance with medical services and complained about their inability to purchase food. They ranged in status from celebrities to working-class citizens.

On Monday, Lang Hsien-ping, a well-known television analyst, stated on Weibo that his 98-year-old mother died in hospital while awaiting the results of her Covid test. Patients must be free of Covid infections during this period to undergo therapy.

"My mother abandoned us for eternity after waiting four hours at the emergency room's door for her Covid test results," Lang posted on Weibo. "I wanted to see her one last time, but because my neighbourhood has been sealed off, it took a long time for me to communicate with the appropriate departments before they allowed me to go to the hospital."

Lang stated that he could not catch a taxi on the streets due to the city's lockdown, which meant he missed his mother's farewell. "It was a tragedy that could have been avoided," he wrote.

Over the weekend, WeChat users shared a 19-minute video of a Shanghai couple being forced to relocate to a centralized quarantine facility. The pair were informed that they were Covid-positive by the local center for disease control (CDC), but they argued they were not, despite their test results. The exchange concluded with a threat by the CDC official to impose the choice against the couple's will.

As word of Shanghai residents straining to purchase food travels throughout China, citizens in neighboring regions reportedly rushed to stockpile goods in recent weeks. Numerous "survival guides" have been circulated on social media in recent days as residents of other parts of China watched with dismay the predicament of Shanghai.

Shanghai's predicament has encouraged other Chinese cities to adopt a zero-risk policy for Covid. Guangzhou, China's southernmost city, canceled in-person courses at elementary and middle schools on Monday in favor of online classes. The measures were implemented in response to the discovery of more than a dozen cases, and the authorities stated that they would last at least a week.

Dr. Zhong Nanshan, the country's foremost expert on respiratory infections, chastised the city on Friday for its lack of readiness. "Prevention and control measures [for the Covid outbreak] in Shanghai were insufficient, and there was a lack of understanding of the Omicron variant's transmission characteristics," he was reported in a university webinar.