BEIJING – China on Wednesday ordered a blockade of about 13 million people in residential areas and workplaces in the northern city of Xi’an after the number of coronavirus infections spiked.
State media reported that city officials had ordered all residents to stay at home unless they had an urgent reason to go out and suspended all traffic to and from the city except special cases.
This order goes into effect at midnight and lasts indefinitely.
The order says one person in each household will be allowed to go out every two days to buy household essentials.
Xi’an on Wednesday reported 52 locally transmitted cases of the novel coronavirus in the past 24 hours.
China has imposed strict pandemic control measures under its no-transmission program, resulting in frequent lockdowns, universal concealment, and mass testing.
Those measures have been stepped up in recent days ahead of the start of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games on February 4.
The Xi’an restrictions are among the harshest since China in 2020 imposed a strict ban on more than 11 million people in and around the central city of Wuhan in the wake of COVID- 19 were first discovered there in late 2019.
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