In response to the discovery of Covid cases, Wuhan has placed a lockdown on one of the city’s core districts. This comes as China continues to take a zero-tolerance policy to the virus, almost three years after the infectious agent was first discovered in the city.
A spokesman for the area’s CDC advised Bloomberg News over the phone that the approximately 900,000 people who call the Hanyang district home should remain inside their residences beginning on Wednesday. Another official at Hanyang’s health office said that the lockdown would last until Sunday, and that all companies that were not absolutely necessary had been instructed to close. There will be no interruptions to the operations of supermarkets and pharmacies.
Photos that were uploaded to Chinese social media purported to show the construction of barriers in Hanyang. The barricades’ stated purpose was to prevent people from fleeing the city while mobility restrictions were in place. The neighbourhood is well-known for the historical sites and museums that can be found there.
On Tuesday, Wuhan reported a total of 18 cases of Covid in the local community. In other areas of the globe, where people have learned to adapt their lives to living with the virus, this is a negligible amount. However, in China, where the government is still working to eradicate breakouts, it is a considerable number.
Lockdowns, mass testing, and travel restrictions are all part of the Covid Zero policy, which was developed in the early days of the epidemic in Wuhan. These measures are taken in an effort to stop the virus from spreading further. However, the strategy, which President Xi Jinping has justified on the grounds that it helps save lives, is causing enormous upheaval in both the social and economic spheres.
After the virus was eradicated by April 2020, Wuhan saw an extended period of time with no new instances, and the city that witnessed the world’s first Covid lockdown recovered to its previous state of normalcy. This curse was broken in July of this year when authorities closed down the Jiangxia district on the outskirts of Wuhan, which is home to over one million people.
After reaching a plateau at the party conference that took place a week ago, the number of cases is once again on the rise nationally. On Tuesday, there were 1,230 new local infections recorded, which is an increase from the previous day’s total of 1,068 and the largest number in the last two weeks.
Datong city, which is located in Shanxi province and is an important coal producing base, has been placed under lockdown. On Monday, the southern metropolis of Guangzhou implemented COVID restrictions in a neighbourhood that is located in the core of the city.