[A police officer in a protective suit keeps watch next to a bridge leading to the Pudong area across the Huangpu River on Mar 28, 2022, after traffic restrictions were implemented amid the lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19 in Shanghai. (Photo by= Reuters/Aly Song)]

SHANGHAI: China's most populous city tightened the first phase of a two-stage COVID-19 lockdown on Tuesday (Mar 29), asking some residents to stay indoors unless they are getting tested as the number of new daily cases exceeded 4,400, Reuters reported.
 
The financial hub of Shanghai, home to 26 million people, is in its second day of lockdown authorities are imposing by dividing the city roughly along the Huangpu River, splitting the historic center from the eastern financial and industrial district of Pudong to allow for staggered testing. While Shanghai's caseload remains modest by global standards - a record 4,381 asymptomatic cases and 96 symptomatic cases for Monday - the city has become a testing ground for China's "zero-COVID" strategy as it tries to bring the highly infectious Omicron variant under control.

Residents east of the Huangpu were locked down in their housing compounds on Monday but were mostly allowed to roam within them. On Tuesday, however, three residents told Reuters neighborhood committees had told them they were no longer allowed to step outside their homes. Wu Qianyu, an official with the municipal health commission, told a briefing that a "clear request" had been made to residents not to leave their apartments, even to take pets for a walk or throw out trash, during "a key stage in nucleic acid testing"