The shutdowns are the widest since the closure of Wuhan and most of the rest of Hubei province in early 2020 at the start of the pandemic. Since then, China’s approach has evolved to target smaller areas affected by outbreaks of lockdowns.
The approach to the Winter Olympics, which open on February 4 in Beijing, and the advent of the Omicron have brought back city-wide barriers in an attempt to stop eruptions and prevent them from spreading to other parts of China.
An official at the Beijing Olympics in charge of disease control, Huang Chun, said the organizers are counting on the cooperation between athletes and officials to prevent an outbreak that could affect participation.
“If the mass cluster transmission happens, it will definitely affect the games and the schedule,” Huang said. “The worst-case scenario, if it happens, is independent of human will, so we leave our options open.”
In Hong Kong, city leader Carrie Lam announced the closure of kindergartens and elementary schools after reports of infections in students. Schools must close on Friday and remain closed until at least the lunar New Year holiday in the first week of February.
The semi-autonomous Chinese city has tightened pandemic-related restrictions in recent days after discovering that the omicron variant had spread beyond people arriving from abroad.
The Anyang Omicron cases are believed to be linked to two other cases found on Saturday in Tianjin. It seems to be the first time Omicron has spread in mainland China in addition to people arriving from abroad and their immediate contacts.
Anyang is an important archeological site, the ancient capital of the Shang Dynasty, and where the earliest Chinese writing is found on what are called oracle bones.
The city said unnecessary vehicles are banned from the streets in a blocking notice shared online by state media late Monday. The number of cases is still relatively low, with 58 new ones confirmed from early Monday to 8 a.m. Tuesday morning.
Tianjin, a large port less than an hour from Beijing by high-speed train, has only locked affected areas as it performs mass testing. As of noon Tuesday, 97 people had tested positive in the city with 14 million people: 49 with symptoms, 15 without symptoms and 33 awaiting further verification.
Xi’an and Yuzhou are both battling the Delta variant, and neither of them has reported any Omicron cases.
More than 2,000 people have been infected in Xi’an in China’s largest outbreak since the first in Wuhan. The old capital is a popular tourist stop, home to the Terracotta Warriors ruins and also a Samsung computer chip factory.
However, the authorities have credited the lockdown in limiting the spread it disrupted life and emergency medical treatment for some. The city reported 13 new cases in the past 24-hour period, down from more than a hundred a day at the peak of the eruption.
