Mainland Covid tracking app to go offline
Mainland authorities on Monday announced it would retire an app used to track Covid-19 contacts in another step towards relaxing the nation’s anti-pandemic control measures. The "Communications Itinerary Card", which tracks whether someone has been to a high-risk area in the past seven days, will go offline from midnight, according to an official WeChat post, after more than two years in operation. Millions of people have been required to key in their phone numbers to produce its signature green arrow in order to travel between provinces or attend events. The decision comes days after Beijing announced an end to large-scale lockdowns, mandatory quarantine in central facilities and a broad relaxation of testing measures. Cases on the mainland have dropped sharply from all-time highs last month, but top health expert Zhong Nanshan warned in state media on Sunday that the prevailing Omicron variant was "spreading rapidly" through the country. The National Health Commission reported 8,626 new local Covid cases for Sunday, of which 2,171 were symptomatic and 6,455 were asymptomatic, down from a total of 10,597 a day earlier. There were no new deaths, keeping fatalities at 5,235. The capital, Beijing, reported 528 symptomatic and 609 asymptomatic cases, down from 784 symptomatic and 877 asymptomatic infections the previous day, local government data showed. Financial hub Shanghai reported 11 symptomatic and 120 asymptomatic infections, compared with four symptomatic and 197 asymptomatic cases the day before, the local health authority reported. And Guangzhou, a city in the south of nearly 19 million people, reported 414 new locally transmitted symptomatic and 599 asymptomatic cases, compared with 264 symptomatic and 817 asymptomatic infections the previous day. (AFP/Reuters)