There is more lockdown misery for more than 200 million people after strict new Covid restrictions were rolled out in China - despite only a handful of cases being reported.
The country will impose the measures on 28 cities, including Wuhan, where the deadly virus was first discovered almost three years ago.
The 'highly contagious’ new strain has seen the severe steps taken try to kill-off the threat.
Leader Xi Jinping's zero-Covid policy has come under criticism after he called it a "people's war to stop the spread of the virus".
New data released from specialist firm Nomura showed around 208 million people are currently living under some level of lockdown.
Two highly contagious subvariants of Omicron have panicked officials, who say BF.7 and BA.5.1.7 are responsible for a spike this month.
"According to government statistics and our survey, 28 cities are currently implementing various levels of lockdown or some kind of district-based control measures," Nomura stated.
Around 800,000 people in one district in Wuhan have been told to stay at home until 30 October.
Wuhan reported up to 25 new infections a day this week, with more than 200 cases over the past two weeks.
Guangzhou, China’s fourth-biggest city by economic output, closed more streets and neighbourhoods and kept people in their homes on Thursday. This was in reaction to more areas being deemed high-risk in a Covid resurgence.
The country's economy has also taken a hit as a result and GDP has fallen by 2.6 per cent in the three months to the end of June from the previous quarter.
The news comes as Shanghai has introduced a new type of Covid-19 vaccine that is inhaled rather than administered via injection in what is a world first.
The first people are starting to receive the vaccine, which is inhaled via the mouth from a vessel that looks like a takeaway coffee cup with a short mouthpiece.
The vaccine was approved by Chinese regulators and produced by Chinese pharmaceutical firm CanSino Biologics, for use as a booster in September.
"Our body's first line of defence is the mucus membrane of our respiratory system, we want that to be directly stimulated to improve immunity and using the inhaled vaccine does that," Dr Zhao Hui, chief medical officer at Shanghai United Family Hospital Pudong, said.
