Shanghai warns against 'panic' as COVID-19 cases mount in China

Shanghai authorities on Wednesday called for calm as worried citizens swamped online grocery platforms to stock up on food over fears of impending lockdowns in a city struggling to halt a Covid spike. China is experiencing its worst Covid-19 outbreak since the start of the pandemic more than two years ago, with Shanghai posting record-high case counts as the highly transmissible Omicron variant frustrates authorities. China’s biggest city on Wednesday reported 981 cases — all but four of them asymptomatic — a number that dwarfs any previous daily tally in the city and which is nearly one-fifth of the day’s…