The outbreak has led to restrictions on mobility in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa
Numerous Chinese towns located in different parts of the country have declared full or partial lockdowns Given the outbreaks of covid-19 registered in recent days, local media report today.
One of the places affected is the popular holiday destination in the southern island province of Hainan, where Sanya, a city known for its luxury beachfront hotels, has recorded more than 1,250 cases symptomatic and asymptomatic in the last 24 hours.
Since last week, different areas of the town began to apply selective confinements that caused more than 80,000 tourists to be unable to return to their places of origin.
Local authorities then reported that the regrowth was caused by an imported variant of the BA.5.1.3 omicron strain, which would have been introduced to the island through trade with foreign fishermen, economic activity among which the first infected were detected.
Local media report today that more than 2,000 tourists who remained in areas of the island not considered at risk have managed to fly back to their places of origin.
In the tropical locality it was recently inaugurated a temporary hospital with an area of 27,800 square meters and capacity for more than 1,800 beds.
According to the Chinese strategy of zero tolerance against covid, all those infected and their close contacts must be isolated in hospitals or other official facilities.
For its part, Yiwu (east), an important manufacturing and commercial center, imposed a three-day lockdown starting Thursday to try to contain a resurgence that authorities described as “serious.”
Since last August 2, Yiwu, with a population of 1.8 million inhabitants, It has registered just over 470 positive cases.
residential complexes remain closed in the city and the authorities have suspended public transport.
In the other part of the country, the capital of the western region of Xinjiang, Urumqi partially suspended the operations of public transport services and imposed the closure of some housing estates for five days after detecting 27 cases on Wednesday.
In another of China’s remote regions, tibetcases have been detected in the last week after not having registered any positive for covid for two years.
The regrowth has led to mobility restrictions in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, and the town of Shigatse, the second largest in the region.
The entire region of Tibet, larger than Bolivia and with a population of 3.5 million of inhabitants, registered this Wednesday 54 cases.
Chinese health authorities declared on Wednesday that “prevention and control work is being subjected to to growing pressure”, although they reiterated the need to “adhere to the zero covid policy”.
China remains clinging to such a policy: from regrowth registered in spring, the inhabitants of large Chinese cities have to undergo several weekly PCR tests in order to enter public places and confinements are decreed in areas where a case is detected.
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Regardless of the massive PCR tests and lockdowns, the country maintains its borders practically closed to the outside: Since March 2020, China has been closed to tourism and only domestic travelers and some foreigners with a valid residence permit can access, after which a quarantine awaits them in a hotel paid for by themselves and designated by the authorities.
According to official Chinese accounts, since the start of the pandemic, 232,809 people were infected in the country and 5,226 died, although the total number of infected excludes the asymptomatic.