Filenews 8 January 2021
China has quarantined two cities south of Beijing in the hope of bringing under control the most serious outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic that this country has faced for six months, where the new crown virus appeared about a year ago.
A total of 18 million inhabitants of the major cities of Shijiatsuang and Singtai, where there are significant rural areas, have been banned from leaving these areas unless there is an urgent need, following the occurrence of a few cases in recent days.
Schools were closed and the motorways, airports, trains and long-distance buses connecting these two cities to the rest of the world in Hebei, the province surrounding Beijing, were closed.
National television broadcast images showing police officers blocking road access, as well as medical staff in protective suits examining residents.
China has managed since last spring to bring under control the epidemic, which has now spread almost all over the world, claiming the lives of nearly 1.9 million people. This country has officially recorded 4,634 deaths since COVID-19, with the last one counted in May.
But in the past week, Hebei reported 310 cases, 183 of which involved asymptomatics. China has now had 87,000 cases of the new coronavirus in a year, with that number having nothing to do with the much heavier accounts announced by Western countries.
Today it was announced that 72 cases were recorded in Hebei in the past 24 hours.
The majority of the cases were detected in Xinjiang, located 300 km south of Beijing and the capital of Hebei. Further south, nine cases were detected in the neighbouring town of Singtai.
The authorities foresee that all residents of these two cities will be examined for the new coronavirus and 6.7 million of them have already been submitted, according to a communication released today by the competent authorities.
All the inhabitants of Hebei cannot leave the province unless there is an urgent need. Those in the areas closest to Beijing can only enter the Chinese capital by presenting a negative diagnostic test for COVID-19 that they have undergone within 72 hours prior to their departure and a proof of residence or work in Beijing.
A provincial official clarified that this explosion is imported from abroad.
The Chinese authorities have stressed in recent months that the new infections respond to strains from abroad imported by travellers or found in frozen food.
Source: RES-BE
