Some of Shanghai's 25 million people managed to get out on Tuesday for short walks and shopping after enduring more than a month under a COVID-19 lockdown, while China's capital, Beijing, focused on mass tests and said it would keep schools closed.
Beijing is desperate to prevent an outbreak now numbering in the dozens of new cases a day from spiraling into a crisis like the one in Shanghai.
Most people in the financial hub of Shanghai are still unable to leave their homes after more than a month of confinement. But a gradual easing of curbs in five of its 16 districts from Sunday, home to about a fifth of the city's population, allowed some to get out briefly.
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