Beijing, Europe Brief News – Wuhan locked down one of its central districts after Covid cases were found, as China persists with a zero-tolerance approach to the virus almost three years since the pathogen first emerged in the city.
The roughly 900,000 residents of Hanyang district have to stay in their homes from Wednesday, a spokeswoman from the area’s CDC told Bloomberg News by phone.
Another official at Hanyang’s health bureau said the lockdown would last until Sunday. All non-essential businesses had to shut, he added. Supermarkets and pharmacies will remain operational.
“We feel numb to it all. We feel more and more numb,” one local told Reuters.
The city of Zhengzhou, home to the world’s largest iPhone manufacturing plant, also imposed lockdown.
It comes as China reported a third straight day of more than 1,000 cases.
Earlier this month Mr Xi signalled that there would be no easing up of the zero-Covid policy, calling it a “people’s war to stop the spread of the virus”.
As of Oct 24, some 28 cities across the country were implementing some degree of lockdown measures, analysts Nomura said. Around 207 million people affected in regions are responsible for almost a quarter of China’s GDP, it added.
Across the country, around 200 lockdowns have been implemented in recent days – the majority of this affecting communities that have been marked as high or medium risk. Residents in different areas are subject to different rules, depending on whether they are in a low.
