News Snapshot:
SHANGHAI: A top Shanghai official conceded Thursday the Chinese financial hub had been “insufficiently prepared” for its latest COVID outbreak, as criticism mounts over lockdowns that have caught residents off guard. The eastern megacity of 25 million has been split in two as part of a rolling lockdown plan to battle China’s worst outbreak in two years. The spread of the Omicron variant is testing the country’s zero-COVID strategy, which aims to crush virus clusters as soon as they emerge. Residents in the eastern half of Shanghai have been confined to their homes since Monday and subjected to testing, before...
