The United States on Saturday said it would allow for the voluntary departure of non-emergency staff to leave its Shanghai consulate amid a surge of infections in the locked-down megacity.
In an advisory, the US raised concerns regarding the outbreak and China's control measures directly with government officials.
"With this priority in mind, the Department of State, on April 8, 2022, allowed for the voluntary departure of non-emergency U.S. government employees, and family members of emergency and non-emergency U.S. government employees, from the Consulate General Shanghai consular district due to a surge in COVID-19 cases and the impact of restrictions related to the response of the People's Republic of China (PRC)," US embassy said in an advisory.
The US mission said, "American citizens are asked to reconsider travel to the PRC due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws and COVID-19-related restrictions."
Further, the advisory asked American citizens not to travel to the Hong Kong, Jilin province, and Shanghai municipality due to COVID-19-related restrictions, including the risk of parents and children being separated.
"We are providing support to our U.S. citizen community throughout China. The Consular Section in Shanghai is currently closed to the public due to local COVID control measures and will open to the public as soon as permitted," the US mission said.
The Chinese mainland reported 1,334 new locally-transmitted COVID-19 infections on Friday, low compared to Thursday's 1,540 cases, the National Health Commission said on Saturday.
Of the locally confirmed cases reported on Friday, 1,015 were in Shanghai, 248 in Jilin, 13 in Zhejiang, and six in Beijing, according to Xinhua News Agency.
The rest of the cases were reported in other 12 provincial-level regions.
A total of 16 new imported COVID-19 cases were reported across the mainland. On Friday, 23,815 new asymptomatic carriers were reported in the China mainland, including the 23,737 cases from the local ones and 78 were the imported ones, according to the commission.
( With inputs from ANI )
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