Lagatar24 Desk
Beijing, Jan 11: According to official media, five million inhabitants of a central Chinese metropolis began being confined to their homes on Tuesday as part of a new lockdown to combat the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron form of the coronavirus.
As it prepares to host the Winter Olympics next month, Beijing is on high alert for fresh outbreaks, employing a “zero-Covid” approach of targeted lockdowns, border restrictions, and lengthy quarantines.
Despite the fact that these efforts have kept the number of new infections significantly lower than in viral hotspots in the United States and Europe, Beijing is currently dealing with local flare-ups in a number of places.
The fast-spreading Omicron strain poses a new threat, with two cases in Anyang, Henan province’s recently quarantined city, linked to an illness cluster in the northern metropolis of Tianjin, some 400 kilometres (250 miles) away.
Authorities in Anyang issued a notice late Monday asking people not to leave their houses or drive cars on the roadways, according to state news agency Xinhua.
According to Xinhua, all non-essential enterprises have been closed, and a mass-testing campaign has begun “to respond to the serious epidemic control situation and carefully prevent the spread of the Omicron virus outbreak.”
According to state broadcaster CCTV, 58 new local illnesses were detected in Anyang on Tuesday, raising the city’s overall caseload to 84 since Saturday. It was unclear whether the new instances were linked to the Omicron strain right away.
The city had already restricted outbound travel, which local officials said was to “ensure that the outbreak does not spill over into outside areas”.
At least three cities in Henan are dealing with outbreaks, with Zhengzhou, the provincial capital, suspending schools and kindergartens and prohibiting eateries from taking dine-in customers. One million people in the city of Yuzhou were ordered to stay at home last week.
In other news, Tianjin, a large port city approximately 150 kilometres from Beijing, has banned individuals from leaving without official authorization, forced all 14 million citizens to be tested, and cancelled trains to the capital.
After citywide mass testing, Tianjin identified additional ten new locally transmitted cases near Winter Olympic venues in Beijing and Hebei Province.
Xi’an, in northern China, is in its third week of lockdown as it tries to contain a 2,000-case outbreak.
Shenzhen, a southern tech metropolis just across the border from Hong Kong, has locked down several housing compounds, initiated a mass-testing campaign, and closed some long-distance bus terminals after logging a few of cases in recent days.
