BEIJING – Only 39 new cases of coronavirus were needed for health authorities in China to arrest nearly 11 million people in the city of Shijiazhuang.
Health officials took no chances on Wednesday, closing the capital of the industrial province of Hebei and ordering a mass testing campaign.
Travel restrictions have been imposed on the rest of the region, which surrounds China’s capital, Beijing, and is home to some 76 million people.
On Saturday, Mayor Ma Yujun said at a news conference that it took just three days to complete the first round of mass testing in Shijiazhuang, with 354 people considered positive for the virus. A second round of testing is expected to begin soon, he added.
Yan Xixin, director of intensive care at Hebei Medical University’s Second Hospital, said at the same news conference that “the risk of having more infections still exists.”
This hard and fast approach is being repeated elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region to prevent outbreaks of coronavirus – including in Japan, Thailand and Australia – making measures to contain the spread of the virus in Europe and the United States seem almost slow.
Authorities put Hebei – known to the textile, steel and pharmaceutical industries – in a “war mode” on Tuesday. This meant that government-coordinated action could begin, investigation teams to track contacts could be established and medical supplies distributed.
For residents of the provincial capital, Shijiazhuang, travel outside the city was prohibited and meetings prohibited. Schools were closed, flights and trains were canceled and the main bus terminal closed.
At the end of Friday, citizens were asked to stay at home for at least seven days.
Nearby, Nangong city officials announced on the social platform WeChat that they would offer rewards of 500 Yuan ($ 77) for reports from anyone who refused a Covid-19 test.
“People must fully understand the need for this approach,” Shi Mo, a graduate student in Shijiazhuang, told NBC News.
Although some social and psychological adjustments were necessary, Shi compared the blockade to preparation “for a protracted war”.
“With Wuhan’s valuable experience in preventing past epidemics, Shijiazhuang has a reference model,” he said. “We are all optimistic about the epidemic.”
The aggressive measures to control the outbreak are similar, though not yet as draconian, as those used by Chinese authorities to eradicate the virus when it first appeared in the city of Wuhan in late 2019.
Since then, the total number of coronavirus cases in China has exceeded 87,000 and the death toll has remained unchanged since May at 4,634 people, according to the National Health Commission of China – the only official source of information on infection rates in the country.
NBC News was unable to independently verify the reported figures, and the Chinese government was criticized for its lack of openness and for minimizing the severity of the outbreak from the beginning. The country has also been accused of mishandling the initial phase of the outbreak and silencing whistleblowers.
A vaccination program is underway in Hebei, however, and the National Health Commission said that vaccines would be provided free of charge as soon as they were available to the general public.
Sun Xinyi, a teacher in Shijiazhuang, said the sudden blockade in the city initially “panicked people”, but the rapid release of government information has reassured many.
Although somewhat unhappy about not being able to order food deliveries, which have been suspended, Sun said that “rigorous and rapid testing across the city is indeed a good thing.”
Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics
Similar harsh approaches are being carried out in other countries.
In the Australian city of Brisbane, with 2 million inhabitants, the city went into a three-day block on Friday night after a single case of the most contagious variant of the coronavirus that emerged in Britain was identified.
“We are going to work hard and go early, to do everything in our power to prevent the spread of this virus,” Queensland state premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told a news conference on Friday.
Japan also declared a one-month limited state of emergency in the capital, Tokyo, and three neighboring prefectures on Thursday, to stem the spread of the virus.
Residents were asked to stay home after 8 pm, as Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga acknowledged that the measures may need to be extended to other parts of the country.
The harsh restrictions come despite Japan being less seriously affected by the pandemic than many other countries, registering about 3,900 deaths, according to data from the Ministry of Health.
Thailand also declared 28 provinces, including Bangkok, as high-risk areas and asked people to work from home and avoid meeting, as authorities confirmed a daily record of 745 new infections on Monday.
The country recorded only 67 deaths in total, according to its Department of Disease Control, one of the lowest in Asia.
Dawn Liu reported from Beijing and Adela Suliman from London.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Ed Flanagan, Eric Baculinao and Will Xu contributed.