China has placed Lanzhou under curfew in response to six new cases in the city and 29 new cases nationwide. Residents have been instructed not to leave their homes unless absolutely necessary.
China ordered residents not to leave their homes except in cases of emergency on Tuesday in order to eradicate a Covid cluster with only a handful of confirmed cases.
After the coronavirus was discovered in China in late 2019, authorities implemented border controls, which kept the number of cases to a trickle and aided China’s economic recovery.
China has maintained a zero-Covid policy, which has resulted in harsh local lockdowns in a few cases, while the rest of the world is opening up and attempting to find ways to live with the virus.
China reported 29 new domestic infections on Tuesday, including six in Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu Province in the country’s northwest.
The most recent outbreak, with 198 cases reported since October 17, has been linked to the highly contagious Delta variant.
As a group of Chinese tourists who travelled from Shanghai to several other provinces has been linked to the outbreak of a serious disease, health officials believe that more infections are possible as testing intensifies in the coming days.
Tens of thousands of people in northern China have already been issued strict stay-at-home orders.
Tourists have been restricted from visiting popular tourist spots, including the famed Lama Temple, in Beijing, where authorities reported three new cases on Tuesday, while locals have been urged not to leave the city except in extreme cases.
According to Beijing News, a housing compound in Changping district, which houses approximately 23,000 people, has been ordered to remain indoors following the discovery of nine cases in recent days.
Residents have been asked to limit large gatherings and to refrain from using the community mahjong or chess rooms.
On Sunday, it was announced that the marathon, which was expected to draw 30,000 people, would be postponed indefinitely.
As a result of the widespread testing that is taking place across 11 provinces, many inter-provincial tour groups have been halted.
China’s case numbers are extremely low in comparison to other parts of the world, but authorities are focused on putting an end to the latest outbreak before the 2024 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
As part of China’s strict enforcement of the zero-Covid policy, those found to have failed to control Covid are frequently fired or punished.
The party secretary of Ejin Banner in northern Inner Mongolia was fired on Tuesday, according to the official Xinhua news agency, for “poor performance and implementation in epidemic prevention and control.”
As a result of the recent storm, approximately 35,000 people have been evacuated from the city.
According to local media reports, around 10,000 tourists were also detained in Ejin.
According to state media, a deputy director of the local police bureau was fired, and six other officials were sanctioned for their “sluggish response” to the latest incident.
According to officials with Beijing’s public security bureau, three criminal investigations into alleged safety violations at Covid have been launched.
