Highlights:
- Lockdown mandated in the Lanzhou city of China which is inhabited by approximately 4 million people.
- Lanzhou entered lockdown following Ejin which also witnessed scattered covid cases.
- 6 out of 29 new cases detected on Tuesday were from Lanzhou.
China has mandated lockdown in Lanzhou city which accommodates 4 million people. The government has directed citizens to refrain from leaving their homes barring emergencies. This has been put into effect to curtail the infection. Lanzhou was put under lockdown ahead of China’s Ejin owing to the spike in new Covid cases.
Lanzhou is located in the Mongolia region of the country and the city’s administration has issued orders to stay indoors, warning of dire civil and criminal action against the ones failing to abide by the rules.
China’s capital, Beijing has been reporting erratic cases since Tuesday, putting a stop to the zero-case record that prevailed for over two months. Critics believe that notwithstanding the recurrent outbreaks in various parts of the country giving rise to significant logistical challenges, China has not exhibited any relaxation in its zero-covid policy.
Foreign travel to Beijing is restricted with a guideline of 21-day quarantine for foreigners. The sprawling capital followed the rigid policy of ensuring zero-covid cases as a preparatory measure move for hosting the upcoming winter Olympics in February next year. China has imposed travel restrictions from India and additional countries.
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Beijing had inflicted serious border controls following the first instance where coronavirus was detected in late 2019, leading to a sharp decline in the number of cases and restoring the country’s economy. As opposed to the rest of the world which is attempting to find ways to coexist with the virus, China has prolonged the zero-covid approach entailing stringent local lockdowns amidst a slight rise in cases.
29 novel covid cases have been reported in China on Tuesday, out of which six were from the Lanzhou region in the country’s northwest. The recent surge has been associated with the exceedingly contagious Delta variant. The cumulative number of cases since October 17th is 198, of which a total of 39 cases have been detected from Lanzhou.
The “entry and exit of citizens” will be strictly regulated and restricted to indispensable supplies or medical treatment. Bus and taxi services in the city have come to a halt and over 70 trains in the city’s station have been suspended, including the ones which lie on the key routes to Beijing and Xi’an. As reported by Southern Airlines representative, all of its flights from Beijing’s Daxing Airport to Lanzhou have been paused without any further notice on recommencement.
Testing has been ramped in the region as health officials indicated the possibility of additional infections in the coming days. The infection has been attributed to a group of tourists who travelled from Shanghai to numerous other provinces.
Struck by the latest wave of infection, over 35,000 residents and 10,000 tourists are under lockdown since Monday.
