China’s financial hub, Shanghai, is coming out of lockdown after nine days of restrictions and mass testing.

Authorities had resisted locking down the city of some 25 million people – China’s largest – to avoid destabilising the economy.

But a surge of COVID cases driven by the Omicron variant forced a rethink.

The eastern side of the city was locked down from March 28-April 1, and the western side from April 1-5 – China’s biggest citywide lockdown since the pandemic began.

Aljazeera.