Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of 1.7 million people in Anhui province, in the east of the country, where 300 new cases of covid were recorded this Monday (4). Anhui has around 67 million residents.
China is the last major economy that maintains a strict strategy against the coronavirus, based on quarantines and mandatory tests. While cases remain low relative to the country’s massive population, officials insist that a zero-covid policy is necessary to avert a health service calamity.
The Anhui outbreak, where authorities detected hundreds of cases last week, comes as the Chinese economy begins to recover from months-long confinement in Shanghai and severe restrictions in the capital, Beijing.
Two counties in the province, Sixian and Lingbi, announced the confinement of more than 1.7 million people, who are only allowed to leave their homes to pass exams. The regional capital, Hefei, said on Sunday that it was running tests across the city every three days.
Footage from state channel CCTV showed empty streets in Sixian over the weekend and people queuing for the sixth large-scale testing operation in recent days.
Si County, also in Anhui, demanded testing of all city residents on Monday, its seventh round of mass screenings.
Anhui reported 287 new infections on Monday, including 258 asymptomatic people, according to China’s National Health Commission, bringing the total number of detected cases to just over 1,000.
Neighboring Jiangsu province reported 56 new cases in four cities on Monday.
Shanghai, the capital, underwent a strict lockdown in April, with a ban on going out to the streets for most residents, mandatory quarantine in confinement centers for the infected and episodes of food shortages, which provoked protests and dissatisfaction among the population. .
There are few questions about the success of China’s control of the pandemic. In the world’s most populous country, most of the population has led near-normal lives for the past two years as the western world has closed schools and businesses.
But the low number of official deaths – 5,226 -, combined with difficulties imposed by the Chinese regime on foreign missions that went to the country to investigate the origins of the coronavirus, raise suspicions about the confidence in the country’s official data.
