The risk of COVID-19 community transmission in Shanghai has been effectively contained, Gu Honghui, head of Shanghai's COVID-19 response team, said at a press conference on Sunday.

Shanghai's daily local infections peaked on April 13 with 27,605 cases and have been going down since, Gu said, adding that the reproduction rate is declining, with the Rt number dropping from 2.27 to 0.67. 

Rt means the effective, time-varying reproduction number of COVID-19. The number has remained below one for 15 consecutive days, Gu said.

The city has now reined in COVID-19 transmission risks at the community level, with six of its 16 districts attaining zero-COVID-19 status, Gu noted.

Zero-COVID-19 status is achieved when a district has three consecutive days with no new daily increases in COVID-19 infections, Gu explained, adding that public transport will be gradually allowed to resume in the five non-central districts of the six.

Despite the COVID-19 outbreak situation in Shanghai showing signs of declining in recent days, the city will launch a new round of mass PCR and antigen tests from Sunday until May 7, Wu Jinglei, director of the Shanghai municipal health commission told the press conference.

The city reported 788 new confirmed locally transmitted cases and 7,084 local asymptomatic carriers on Saturday, the municipal health commission said Sunday.

It also registered 38 COVID-19-related deaths on Saturday, and the average age of the deceased was 80.9, according to the local health commission. All 38 patients had serious underlying health issues.

A total of 3,055 patients were discharged from the hospital after recovery on Saturday, the commission said.

So far, the Chinese megacity has registered 53,364 locally confirmed COVID-19 cases since February 26 and 422 deaths.

A total of 20,669 people remain hospitalized, with 61 critical cases, according to the latest data from Shanghai's health authority.

The Chinese mainland reported 916 locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases on Saturday, according to the latest data from the National Health Commission.

Apart from Shanghai, 13 other provincial-level regions on the mainland reported new local COVID-19 cases, including 53 in Beijing.