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At a coronavirus testing site in Beijing, residents line up to sign up for a routine Covid-19 throat swab. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
BEIJING (AP) — China has locked down its 65 million citizens under severe COVID-19 restrictions and is encouraging domestic travel during upcoming national holidays.
Across the country, 33 cities, including seven regional capitals, covering more than 65 million people, are under full or partial lockdown, according to a report published in a Chinese business magazine late Sunday. Caixin.
He stated that the epidemic occurred in 103 cities.
Despite the relatively low number of infections, authorities have added a “zero-COVID” policy that calls for locking, detaining and restricting people suspected of having close contact with any confirmed case.
China recorded 1,552 new cases in the past 24 hours in a population of 1.4 billion, the National Health Commission reported on Monday.
Most of the 21 million people in the southwestern city of Chengdu are confined to their apartments or apartment buildings, while classes were taken online after 14 new cases were reported in the eastern port city of Tianjin, all but two of which showed no symptoms.
Chengdu lifted the lockdown for nearly 1 million people in two areas in the southwest, Qionglai city and Xinjin district. Three more mass tests are being conducted through Wednesday, and schools remain closed for all classes online.
September 10-12 is China’s Harvest Festival, the country’s second most important holiday after Lunar New Year. The anti-virus measures have taken a heavy toll on the economy, travel and society at large, but China’s ruling Communist Party has He said they are necessary to prevent the widespread spread of the virus, which was discovered in the central Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019. .
The fear of being locked up or sent to a detention facility for being in close proximity to someone who has tested positive has severely limited people’s work, social interactions and travel habits.
Since the outbreak began, China has placed tens of millions of people under strict lockdowns, sometimes preventing residents from accessing food, healthcare and basic necessities.
A more than five-week shutdown of Shanghai’s largest city and key financial center in the spring upended the region’s economy, sparked protests and prompted an exodus of foreign residents.
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