A day after the Chinese national authorities reported more than 1,000 fresh COVID-19 cases in dozens of cities, the highest single-day spike in about 2 years since the pandemic began, multiple cities face partial or complete lockdowns.

Authorities in Shanghai and other major cities have stepped up targeted lockdowns and testing to halt Omicron. Shanghai today ordered its schools to close and shift to online instruction.

In Beijing, several residential compounds have been fully or partially locked down.

Changchun in northeaster China has asked its 9 million residents to work from home and said it would start mass testing. Only one person in a family will be allowed to go out every two days to buy "daily necessities".

The Chinese authorities have already imposed a partial lockdown in Jilin city which has the same name as the surrounding province. There, travel links with other cities have been snapped as a precautionary measure. Today, 93 cases were reported in the city of Jilin.

"Infections in vaccinated individuals are more likely to be asymptomatic than infections in unvaccinated individuals, and vaccine coverage is now very high in China," explains Ben Cowling, an epidemiology professor at the University of Hong Kong.

As of March 10, in mainland China, there were 112,940 confirmed cases, including those who had arrived from abroad as well as those from within the country.