Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: There is no respite from fresh waves of Covid-19 as the pandemic returned to haunt China, forcing it to lock down over 21.2 million people in the southwestern metropolis of Chengdu, the media reported on Thursday.
The fresh outbreak was noticed during the four-day citywide testing in Chengdu.
During four days of citywide Covid-19 testing, the metropolis announced a fresh lockdown as some of the country’s most populous and economically important cities continued to battle outbreaks.
Officials ordered the people of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, to stay home from 6 PM on Thursday, allowing only one person from the families daily to shop for necessities, the city government said in a statement. It was unclear when the lockdown would be lifted after the mass testing ends on Sunday.
According to media reports, Chengdu, which reported 157 domestically transmitted infections on Wednesday, is the largest Chinese city to face lockdown since Shanghai did in April and May.
Other major cities, including Shenzhen in the south and Dalian in the northeast, also clamped pandemic-related restrictions this week, ranging from work-from-home requirements to the closure of entertainment businesses in some districts.
The moves curtail the activities of several million, intensifying the challenges for Beijing to minimize the economic impact of a “dynamic-zero” Covid policy that has kept China’s borders mostly shut to global visitors and made it an outlier.
Chengdu’s lockdown triggered panic buying of essentials as locals ran to grocery and other stores to stock up.
Non-essential employees in Chengdu were ordered to work from home, as officials urged residents not to leave the city unless needed. The reports said that residents who must leave their residential compounds for hospital visits or other special needs must get approval from neighborhood officials.
On Thursday, they canceled nearly 400 flights at Shuangliu Airport in Chengdu and suspended another 725 flights at Tianfu Airport.
In Shenzhen, which has the third-highest economic output among Chinese cities, the most populous district Baoan and tech hub Nanshan suspended large events and indoor entertainment for a few days and ordered stricter checks of digital health credentials for people entering residential compounds.
Over half of Shenzhen’s ten districts, with a population of 15 million, ordered the closure of entertainment venues and halted or reduced restaurant dining for a few days.
Officials in Shenzhen largely avoided shutting down offices and factories as they did during a week-long lockdown in March.