Seen from France, where daily contaminations approached half a million at the height of the last wave, the bar may seem anecdotal, especially for the most populous country in the world.
But 20,472 cases of Covid-19 in 24 hours is a record in recent months in China.
The fault of an Omicron variant which slips through the smallest interstices of an ultra-strict zero Covid protocol, reinforced with strong blows of local quarantines.
In February, the number of daily cases barely exceeded 100.
But now the epidemic is exploding in Shanghai, where more than 80% of new cases are reported.
The city of 25 million inhabitants, the largest in the country, will convert a gigantic exhibition park into a field hospital with a capacity of 40,000 beds, announced the new China news agency.
But its almost total confinement since last week does not seem to be stopping the trend: the bar of 10,000 daily cases was only crossed on Sunday, before the figures doubled in less than 72 hours.
Containment policy challenged
No new deaths have been recorded, the health ministry said.
The last two deaths officially announced in the country date back to mid-March.
Although the overwhelming majority of cases detected in Shanghai are asymptomatic, anyone who tests positive, including children, is placed in solitary confinement in centers provided for this purpose.
The policy has been challenged on social media, with children, even infants, being separated from their parents if they have tested positive but their parents are negative.
In Suzhou, a city 70 km from Shanghai, health authorities announced this weekend that they had discovered a mutation of the Omicron variant previously unknown to national or international databases.
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Health
Covid-19
Coronavirus
China
Variant Omicron
Shanghai