SHANGHAI/BEIJING – On Tuesday (August 9) China rushed to eliminate Covid-19 outbreaks in the resorts of Tibet and Hainan, and the government launched new rounds of massive and final sites to involve the highly transmissible variant of Omicron.
Mainland China reported 828 new cases transmitted in more than a dozen provinces and regions by Aug. 8, more than a portion of them in Hainan, a popular tourist destination, according to official knowledge released Tuesday.
Tibet, which until now had reported only one symptomatic case since the pandemic began more than two years ago, has also reported cases.
On Tuesday, parts of Tibet were conducting major COVID-19 tests, adding its two largest cities, Lhasa and Shigatse, where the local government suspended major events, closed entertainment and venues, and closed some tourist sites, adding potala Palace.
The Tibetan government reported that one local patient showed symptoms and 21 local asymptomatic infections on August 8. While the number of cases is very low compared to other parts of China and the world, rare infections affected a nerve in some residents.
“Although my life and my painting were not much affected and Lhasa took action very quickly, I was still shocked, because Tibet had been free of covid for about 920 days,” said Yungchen, a 26-year-old Lhasa resident, who was told through his employer to the paintings in his house.
“I’m a little worried, because we don’t know when and where the other inflamed people contracted the virus,” she told Reuters, who preferred not to give her full name.
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Yungchen said he expected a months-long shutdown in Shanghai in Lhasa, but still bought rice and cooking oil. He bought enough to last 4-5 days in case he couldn’t go out to dinner if covid-19 restrictions were tightened.
Shigatse, the gateway city to Tibet’s Everest region, has scheduled a three-day “period of silence” in which other people cannot enter or leave, with many businesses suspended.
Lhasa and Shigatse were conducting a new round of mass testing, and the current round begins on Wednesday, state television reported on Tuesday.
In Ngari Prefecture in western Tibet, a sparsely populated region that has attracted many pilgrims to Mount Kailash, 3 cities have started 3 rounds of mass testing, while the others have started the first, state television said.
Omicron’s subvariants challenge China’s strategy of temporarily blocking the spread of each and every nascent group.
Tibet and Hainan, which have seen few cases for more than two years, now face the danger of strict and persistent restrictions as the economy weakens. Their tourism-dependent economies may be particularly vulnerable if epidemics continue.
In 2019, Tibet received a record 39. 6 million domestic tourists attracted by its unspoilt grass landscapes and the promise of adventure travel. This figure is comparable to the 40. 9 million foreign tourists who arrived in the UK that year.
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In the tropical Hainan region, millions of other people are confined to various towns and villages, and are only allowed to faint for mandatory reasons, such as covid-19 testing, groceries, and jobs.
Dongfang, a city of more than 400,000 people, went into a three-day lockdown starting Tuesday. The provincial capital, Haikou, lifted the lockdown that lasted for hours on Monday.
Some 178,000 tourists are also stranded on the island, according to state media. Hainan said Tuesday that some tourists are allowed to go out if they can show negative results.
The provincial government will have to take all measures to succeed in “Covid-19 0 at the network level” until Friday, when no new cases emerge in communities outside the quarantine zones, the Hainan government said on Monday.
Hainan’s good fortune containing smaller groups in April and July generated complacency among officials and residents, a provincial health official said.
“We still have many gaps and weaknesses in the epidemiological investigation, testing and remedy of COVID-19,” Zhou Changqiang, head of the Hainan Health Commission, told state television on Monday.