(Yicai Global) March 28 -- Shanghai’s airports and railways, including international passenger and freight transport, will continue operating as usual despite a phased lockdown on the two halves of the municipality over the next nine days to conduct a new round of Covid-19 testing, the director of the city’s health commission said today.

Shanghai reported 50 locally transmitted confirmed Covid-19 cases and 3,450 asymptomatic infections yesterday as the city grapples with its worst outbreak since the pandemic began.

In order to cut transmission chains, Pudong, the area east of the Huangpu River which carves the city in two, will go into lockdown today for four days while its 11 million residents undergo mass testing, the municipal government said yesterday. Puxi, the area to the west of Huangpu River, will be locked down from April 1 to April 5 for testing.

Flights are taking off and landing at Shanghai’s Pudong and Hongqiao International Airports as normal, Yicai Global learned. International and domestic passenger flights as well as cargo flights are all running as scheduled.

The Port of Shanghai, which has the largest container throughput in the world, continues to operate 24 hours a day, Shanghai International Port said. The port authority will spare no effort to protect all areas of the port from Covid in order to keep the transport channels for daily necessities as well as pandemic prevention and control supplies open.

In the first two months of the year, the city posted a 22 percent jump in the value of imports and exports from the year before to CNY674.5 billion (USD105.8 billion), according to Shanghai customs. This is much higher than the national average growth of 13.3 percent.

Editor: Kim Taylor