Staff members register information for residents at a temporary testing site in Shanghai, May 11, 2022. Photo: China News Service/Yin Liqin

Shanghai on Wednesday found 1,449 new COVID-19 positive cases, which represents the ninth consecutive day to report fewer than 5,000 cases, as the epidemic situation becomes stable and improved, but authorities said the regional rebound risk still exists.

The city found 144 locally transmitted COVID-19 cases and 1,305 local asymptomatic infections on Wednesday. Among them, two patients were found outside the control management areas, health authorities said. The previous day, on Tuesday, the city reported zero new positive cases at the community level.

The number of new infections has been on the decline and fewer new positive cases were detected outside the quarantine control areas. This means the risk of community transmission has been effectively contained, Zhao Dandan, deputy director of the Shanghai health commission, said at Thursday's press briefing.

Meanwhile, the resurgence risk still exists, so preventive and control measures will continue, especially in old residential communities and urban villages, Zhao said. He then emphasized that any relaxation of the policies will lead to wasting all of the previous efforts.

Lu Hongzhou, head of Shenzhen's anti-epidemic expert team, told the Global Times on Thursday that "Shanghai needs to consolidate the hard-won results to prevent resurgences in certain areas ." 

Lu also called for a gradual resumption of work and production under  preventive measures, reminding at the same time that high-frequency nucleic acid tests are useful to detect positive cases as early as possible.

Local authorities reported that there were 349 COVID-19 patients in severe conditions and 61 in critical conditions being treated in hospitals as of Wednesday. Moreover, five new COVID-19-related deaths were reported on Wednesday, and the patients had an average age of 89.2 with severe preexisting conditions, leading the total number of deaths to 565 since February 26, according to the authorities. 

As of Wednesday, over 18.29 million residents have been classified under "prevention-level" regions, and over 1.97 million residents are still under lockdown, the authorities said on Thursday. 

More than 845,000 close contacts of COVID-19 positive cases have been found and put under quarantine as of Thursday.

Hospitals in the city also gradually resumed normal services and the authorities remind residents to make hospital appointments in advance and reduce the time of stay in the hospital when seeing doctors.