Worrying signs for India amid fourth wave scare, lockdown and mass Covid-19 testing in China?

China's decision to impose fresh lockdown in its largest city Shanghai and start mass testing as part of its strict Covid-19 strategy has sent worrying signals to India amid intense speculations about a possible fourth wave of the coronavirus hitting the country in the days to come.

Shanghai's Pudong financial district and nearby areas will be locked down from early Monday to Friday as citywide mass testing gets underway, the local government said.

In the second phase of the lockdown, the vast downtown area west of the Huangpu River that divides the city will then start its own five-day lockdown from Friday. Residents will be required to stay at home and deliveries will be left at checkpoints to ensure there is no contact with the outside world.

Offices and all businesses not considered essential will be closed and public transport suspended. Already, many communities within the city of 26 million have been locked down, with their residents required to submit to multiple tests for Covid-19. Shanghai's Disney theme park is among the businesses that closed earlier.

China has reported more than 56,000 infections nationwide this month, with a surging outbreak in the northeastern province of Jilin accounting for most of them. Shanghai has had relatively few of those cases, with just 47 recorded Saturday.

Should India worry?

Though the Covid-19 situation in India remains fully under control, with a sharp decline in new and active cases, experts have been sounding an alarm about the fourth wave hitting India around mid-June.

With more than 40 million confirmed cases, India is next only to the US which has the world's highest Covid-19 caseload. If top global health experts are to be believed, the Omicron sub-variant is behind the recent surge in the new Covid cases around the world.

Omicron, which carries more than 50 genetic mutations, is being blamed for the fresh wave of infections across the globe.