Covid-19 Back In China? Massive Surge In Caseload In 2 Yrs, City Of 9 Million Put Under Lockdown

Residents have been asked to remain indoors, with only one member allowed to venture out to buy food and other necessities every two days

New Delhi: Amid a new surge in Covid-19 cases due to the highly contagious Omicron variant, China imposed a fresh lockdown in the north-eastern city of Changchun, with a population of nine million, on Friday.

According to news agency AP, the residents have been asked to remain indoors, with only one member allowed to venture out to buy food and other necessities every two days. The government has also made three rounds of mass testing mandatory for all residents, while non-essential businesses have been closed and transport links suspended.

The Chinese government has also decided to introduce rapid antigen tests for the first time as Covid outbreaks spread, the health commission said as reported by news agency AFP.

As many as 397 cases of local transmission nationwide were reported on Friday, 98 of them from Jilin province, that surrounds Changchun, the country's automobile hub. In the entire province, Covid cases have crossed 1,100 since the onset of the recent outbreak late last week.

Changchun on Friday witnessed two more cases taking the tally to 78 during the latest spike. Under China’s approach of ‘zero tolerance’ towards the pandemic, authorities have repeatedly asked to lock down any community where one or more Covid cases were reported.

Another 93 fresh cases were confirmed in the nearby city of Jilin that bears the same name as the surrounding province, prompting the authorities to impose a partial lockdown in the city and severe travel links with other cities.

Meanwhile, officials of the Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology University have been sacked after a cluster of infections was reported on the campus and the students complained on social media platforms that those who tested Covid positive were being confined in school libraries and other buildings in poor conditions.

The school has logged 74 confirmed Covid cases and transferred more than 6,000 people to quarantine, according to state broadcaster CCTV and aerial images showed students in hazmat suits lining up in the cold and dark waiting to be transferred.

The latest lockdowns, that also include Yucheng with 5,00,000 people in the eastern province of Shandong, show that China is still following the draconian approach to the Covid pandemic it has enforced for most of the past two years, despite some earlier indications of more targeted measures.