China's President Xi Jinping praised the country's "tested" zero-COVID strategy on Friday, even as Shanghai authorities prepared nearly 130,000 beds for COVID-19 patients amid surging cases and mounting public anger.
Until March, China had kept cases low with regional lockdowns, mass testing and strict restrictions on international travel.
But the country has reported thousands of daily cases in recent weeks, with economic hub and outbreak epicenter Shanghai placed under lockdown over ballooning infections of the highly transmissible omicron variant.
Shanghai authorities said Friday that 130,000 new beds were ready or under construction for COVID-19 positive patients in the city at makeshift venues, including exhibition halls.
The city reported more than 21,000 new infections on Friday, with the majority asymptomatic.
Yet President Xi on Friday lauded the country's COVID-19 response, saying at an event to honor Olympic athletes that the country's handling of the recent Winter Games showed that its virus policy "once again withstood the test."
"Some foreign athletes told us that if there was a gold medal for epidemic response, it should be awarded to China," Xi said at the ceremony in Beijing.
Shanghai's roughly 25 million inhabitants were locked down in phases last week, prompting panic-buying and mass testing scenes.
Residents have begun to chafe at the restrictions, with some taking to social media to complain about food shortages and express outrage over the killing of a pet corgi by health workers.
Meanwhile, officials softened the policy of splitting COVID-19 minor patients from their virus-free parents after the rule triggered public anger.
But Beijing is sticking to its zero tolerance approach and is determined to squash the Shanghai outbreak, sending in 38,000 medical workers and 2,000 soldiers from around the country to the city as reinforcements.
The state-run People's Daily newspaper on Friday declared that zero COVID- remained the "best choice" for China, arguing the country should "never grow numb, never grow tired of fighting, and never grow slack."
China, the country where the coronavirus was first detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019, is among the last remaining places in the world following a zero COVID-19 approach to the pandemic.
According to independent indices released by Chinese media group Caixin, the outbreak has taken on an increasingly serious economic dimension, with China's factory output falling to its lowest in two years in March.
Researchers have warned China could suffer a "colossal outbreak" overwhelming its health care system if it abruptly relaxes restrictions.
But the World Health Organization's (WHO) Western Pacific regional director Takeshi Kasai on Thursday warned that the "human and social cost of lockdowns is considerable."
