China is putting more efforts to control new virus outbreaks with a lockdown(行动限制) of the 13 million residents of the northern city of Xi’an following a sudden large increase in coronavirus(冠状病毒) cases. The measure comes just weeks before the country hosts the Winter Olympics in Beijing, about 625 miles to the northeast.
There was no word on whether the new Omicron(奥密克戎) variant of the coronavirus was bringing about the increasing cases in Xi’an, or the far more common Delta type. China has confirmed just seven Omicron cases — four in the southern city of Guangzhou, two in Changsha and one in the northern port of Tianjin.
China has also been dealing with a substantial COVID outbreak in several cities in the eastern province of Zhejiang near Shanghai, although isolation measures there have been more narrowly targeted. Authorities have adopted strict pandemic control measures under their policy of seeking to drive new transmissions to zero, leading to frequent lockdowns, universal masking and mass testing. The Xi’an restrictions are some of the strictest since China in 2020 introduced a strict lockdown on more than 11 million people in and around the central city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected in late 2019.
Xi’an on Thursday reported another 63 locally transmitted cases, pushing the city’s total to at least 211 over the past week. Xi’an is the capital of Shaanxi Province, famed for its imperial relics, as well as a major center of industry. “We are not receiving any new guests and no present guests are allowed to leave the hotel,” said a receptionist at the Hanting Hotel in Xi’an, who only gave her family name, Li. “Including the guests, we are required to take a test once every two days.” Li said. “There will be an impact on our business and we have no idea how long it will last.”
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