Since January 2, a total of 304 positive cases have been reported in Hebei – most of them in Shijiazhuang, official figures show. The city is located just 180 miles (289.6 kilometers) southwest of Beijing – about a three-hour drive or an hour on the high-speed train.
At a news conference on Thursday, city officials announced a ban on outward travel for all residents and vehicles in Shijiazhuang, except in emergencies.
In the city, meetings are prohibited, all schools have been suspended and residential communities and villages have also been closed.
The restrictions are some of the strictest imposed in China, as the country largely contained the spread of the coronavirus in March. They are reminiscent of the draconian blockade during the initial outbreak in the central city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected in December 2019.
The outbreak in Shijiazhuang comes just weeks before the Lunar New Year holiday, China’s most important annual festival, which usually receives millions of people traveling home to be reunited with their family.
Last year, the Chinese government isolated Wuhan two days before the Lunar New Year, but millions of people had already left the city, potentially carrying the virus to their hometowns across the country.
This year, fearing that Lunar New Year trips will speed up the spread of the virus again, an increasing number of local governments have advised residents not to return home for the holiday, with government officials and employees of state companies forced to stay unless special approval is given.
Restrictive measures
In Shejiazhuang, authorities declared last week that the city was entering a “war mode” to combat the spread of the virus. A city-wide coronavirus test was soon implemented for all of its 11 million residents.
On Thursday night, two medical teams – each with about 100 members – carrying test kits and other equipment were dispatched from the eastern provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang to Shijiazhuang to assist in the effort.
In addition, a hospital in the city has been cleared and assigned to treat Covid-19 patients, with three more hospitals on standby, said Meng.
Rapid and drastic measures such as mass testing, extensive contact tracking and rigid blocks have defined China’s response to sporadic local outbreaks.
Last October, the eastern port city of Qingdao tested more than 10 million people in just four days in a dozen cases transmitted locally.
In late October, Kashgar prefecture in western Xinjiang implemented mass tests for nearly 5 million people and imposed blockade measures after a single case of asymptomatic coronavirus was reported.
Potential weak link
But this time, some public health experts in China said the resurgence of the virus in Shijiazhuang was detected too late, with rural areas being a weak link in preventing and controlling the epidemic.
The first confirmed case was detected on January 2 – a 61-year-old resident outside Shijiazhuang. In the following days, most of the new cases were detected in villages in the same district.
Lu Hongzhou, co-director of the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center at Fudan University, told the state’s Global Times that the Shijiazhuang outbreak shows that villages are a vulnerable link.
As the virus spread silently, residents continued to participate in the meetings. Local health officials have found that many infections are associated with funerals, weddings and other social gatherings, the report said.
“In addition to the wedding banquets, some residents also held religious activities at home every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, or at least twice a week, with the participation of dozens of people, mainly the elderly,” said a local official in the epicenter village. of the Shijiazhuang outbreak cited as saying.
CNN’s Beijing office is assigned to journalism.