Shanghai reports three deaths among COVID patients on April 17

(Corrects number of tests in paragraph 3 to 200 million, not 20 million)

SHANGHAI – The Chinese financial hub of Shanghai said three people infected with COVID-19 died on Sunday, the first time during the current outbreak that it reported deaths among coronavirus patients.

The city reported 19,831 new daily asymptomatic COVID-19 cases on April 17, down from 21,582 on the previous day. New symptomatic cases stood at 2,417, down from 3,238.

The city has conducted more than 200 million nucleic acid tests since March 10 in a bid to curb China’s biggest COVID-19 outbreak since the coronavirus was first discovered in Wuhan in late 2019.

(Reporting by David Stanway, Wang Jing and Roxanne Liu; Editing by Kim Coghill)