Shanghai further eased its grueling, weeks-long COVID-19 lockdown on Wednesday despite a mounting official death toll and tens of thousands of daily cases.
China's largest city is ambling towards reopening as businesses and residents grow increasingly desperate over closures and food shortages.
City authorities confirmed seven COVID-19 deaths and more than 18,000 mostly asymptomatic new cases on Wednesday, while also announcing 4 million more people had been released from the strictest version of lockdown. While Shanghai's outbreak remains small compared with parts of the world getting used to living with the virus, it has rattled China's inflexible virus response, and prompted rare glimpses of discontent usually wiped away by the "Great Firewall" of censorship.
Shanghai has confirmed just 17 official fatalities in its current outbreak, though some have questioned that tally, pointing to the low vaccination rate among China's vast elderly population.