Shanghai eased its COVID-19 lockdown on Wednesday, allowing 4 million additional people to leave their homes after being confined for nearly one month. Some factories and commercial hubs also resumed operations.

Shanghai, China’s most populous city with more than 25 million residents, has now permitted about 50% of the population to exit a mass quarantine. The restrictions were introduced as COVID cases spiked and China rolled out the “zero-COVID” strategy.

Wu Ganyu, a senior public health official, made the announcement at a press conference on Wednesday, saying that coronavirus was now “under effective control” for the first time in some parts of the city, according to reports from Associated Press.

China’s new strategy to tackle COVID-19 includes bifurcating COVID-19 cases into two categories: those with symptoms (symptomatic) and those without (asymptomatic). 

Also Read: COVID deaths jump by 40%, but cases falling globally: WHO

On Wednesday, the government reported 19,927 new cases in China’s mainland, all but 2,761 of which had no symptoms. Shanghai accounted for 95% of the total, or 18,902 cases, of which only 2,495 had symptoms, Associated Press reported.

The government reported 26,760 people who tested positive but had no symptoms were released on Wednesday from observation. That included 25,411 in Shanghai, where some residents of quarantine centers have complained they are unsanitary.

The shutdown of Shanghai, a global economic hub, prompted fears global manufacturing and trade might be disrupted. Official data this week showed economic activity in the first three months of this year declined compared with the final quarter of 2021.

Other major industrial and trading centers including Changchun, Jilin and Shenyang in the northeast, the port of Tianjin east of Beijing and Shenzhen and Guangzhou in the south have shut down businesses, imposed travel restrictions or told residents to stay home.

That forced global automakers and other manufacturers to reduce or stop production because their suppliers could not deliver.