The Chinese government has ordered a lockdown on the province of 24 million as it tries to contain the Covid-19 outbreak that has spread to multiple locations.
Authorities have reported 1,437 new cases across the country, including 895 in Jilin province, where lockdown measures have been put in place. People living in the province are prohibited from traveling and anyone who wants to leave the province must apply for permission from the police. Restrictions have already been put in place in two cities, Jilin and Changchun.
The industrial province has deployed 7,000 reservists to help with the response, from maintaining order and registering people at testing centers to using drones to carry out aerial spraying and disinfection, state broadcaster CCTV said.
On Sunday, a government notice said all residential neighborhoods in Shenzhen, a city of 17.5 million people, would go under “closed management,” meaning they would be on lockdown. Each resident had to undergo three rounds of testing, for which they were allowed to leave their homes, and all buses and subways were suspended.
All businesses in the financial and technology hub bordering Hong Kong were ordered to close or work from home if they weren’t supplying food, utilities or other essentials, according to the notice. On Monday afternoon, Foxconn, which makes iPhones for Apple, announced that it was among the businesses suspending operations in Shenzhen. Its larger production site in Zhengzhou remains open and the company said it would reopen on the recommendation of the local government.
No one can leave the city, except in special circumstances and with a negative test result received within 24 hours before departure. Monitoring groups with a “hotline service” have been set up in local communities and residential buildings, the report said.
A volunteer disinfects the streets in Changchun. Photo: APThe restrictions are to remain in place until at least March 20, adding Shenzhen to a range of other cities with various restrictions, including China’s most populous city, Shanghai.
Some residents of Cangzhou, south of Beijing, have also been ordered to stay home after nine cases were reported there, according to a government notice.
According to Zhang Yan, deputy director of the provincial health committee, Jilin provincial authorities are stepping up disease control measures after concluding that their previous response was inadequate.
“The emergency response mechanism in some areas is not reliable enough,” Zhang said at a press conference. State media reported that the mayor and deputy head of the party of Jilin City, the director of the Changchun Health Commission and the head of the party at Jilin University were among at least 26 officials who were fired or punished for their alleged poor response to the current outbreak.
The number of cases reported among China’s 1.4 billion people is low compared to other countries, but represents the country’s worst outbreak since the pandemic began. China’s strategy to quickly contain outbreaks through resource-intensive mass tests and lockdowns has been successful so far. However, as in other countries, the emergence of the Omicron variant challenged the defense. For the first time, Chinese authorities have approved products for self-testing for antigens, in addition to government testing for nucleic acids.
China is one of the few governments in the world that still follows a zero tolerance approach. Across the strait Taiwan is reporting only a few — or zero — daily cases in the community and appears to have contained Omicron outbreaks. It maintains strict border controls and some social restrictions, and has yet to face a large scale Omicron outbreak.
In Hong Kong, the option has stunned the city and its government is pushing for a strategy of elimination rather than mitigation. More than 32,400 cases were reported on Sunday. Hospitals were flooded, with patient beds in lobbies and parking lots. As of last week, Hong Kong had the highest death rate in the developed world, drawing criticism from the government for failing to adequately prepare for a large-scale outbreak in a largely Covid-free two years.
“People should not get the wrong impression that the virus is now under control,” said Dr. Albert Au, an expert at the state Center for Health Protection. “Once we let our guard down, perhaps [infections] bounce back and get back up.”
Zhang Wenhong, China’s chief infectious disease expert, said on Monday that the outbreak in Hong Kong is in the “initial stage of exponential growth” and said panic is inevitable for some, but people should remain confident in the effectiveness of lockdowns, testing and restrictions. . “As long as we slow down, the virus will not be fast,” he said.
Zhang said the opening would be a “disaster” for China as many older people are not vaccinated, but once the outbreak is contained, there should be a “moderate and sustainable” long-term strategy.
“We must take advantage of the rare opportunity and window period brought about by the inevitable social reset and prepare more complete, smarter and more sustainable coping strategies,” he said.
Additional report by Xiaoqian Zhu