China’s worst COVID-19 outbreak since Wuhan was preceded by an influx of imported cases from Hong Kong, showing the risk the city’s virus crisis poses to the mainland.
Just across the border from Hong Kong, tech hub Shenzhen is emerging from a weeklong lockdown called to tackle an outbreak of the omicron variant. Shanghai, meanwhile, is seeing its highest new case levels of the pandemic, with half the city locked down for testing after a handful of infections ballooned into more than 2,000 in a matter of weeks.
An analysis by Bloomberg News found the uptick in cases in both cities — key entry points into the mainland — came around the same time or shortly after a surge in infections was recorded in quarantined travelers coming from Hong Kong, where the number of recorded new cases still hovers above 8,000.