It took just 39 new cases of coronavirus for health authorities in China to place nearly 11 million people in prison in the city of Shijiazhuang, reports NBC News.
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.
Read the full story on NBCNews.com