The measures affected a portion of the six million citizens of the port city of Dalian, as well as an undisclosed number in Chengde and Shijiazhuang in Hebei province, about 3 hours from the capital, Beijing.
The Dalian blockade was expected to last five days, the government has extended restrictions beyond based on the number of new cases.
Beijing has been relatively spared so far, travel to and from the capital has been discouraged, and citizens are subject to testing almost daily.
Partial closures were also imposed in cities such as Chengdu in the southwest, Shenyang in the northeast and Jishui in the southeast.
Such measures are imposed through China’s “zero covid” policy, which contrasts sharply with measures taken by other countries to coexist with the virus through a slow relaxation of restrictions, vaccinations, preventive measures and voluntary isolation.
China has largely kept its borders closed to foreign visitors, while requiring those who come to undergo more than a week of quarantine in hotels where sanitary conditions are poor.
Masking and regular testing are also popular and anyone who has been in close contact and proves to be using the virus is forcibly transported to box hospitals.
The World Health Organization called China’s policy untenable, and on Monday a Chinese think tank issued a rare public war of words with the ruling Communist Party, saying restrictions that have closed cities and disrupted trade and industry will have to be replaced to save it an “economic crisis. “paralyze. “
The Anbound Research Center did not give main points about imaginable changes, but said President Xi Jinping’s government deserves to focus on strengthening declining growth.
He noted that the United States, Europe and Japan are economically after easing measures against the disease.
“Preventing the threat of economic stagnation deserves to be the priority task,” the think tank said in a report titled It’s time for China to adjust its prevention and virus policies.
Previous closures have seen tens of millions of other people confined to their homes for weeks.
A strict lockdown in Shanghai’s largest city and grocery shopping mall earlier this year sparked online and in-person protests against a lack of food and medical services.
China on Tuesday reported 1,717 cases of transmission, adding 52 in Liaoning province, where Dalian is located.
Most of them were reported in Sichuan province, whose capital is Chengdu, and the vast majority were asymptomatic.
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