When a handful of new coronavirus cases materialized this month in a province outside Beijing – apparently spread at a wedding party in a village – Chinese officials took action.
They closed two cities with more than 17 million inhabitants, Shijiazhuang and Xingtai. They ordered a crash test scheme for almost all residents there, which was completed in a matter of days.
They shut down transportation and canceled weddings, funerals and, most significantly, a provincial Communist Party conference.
This week, the blockades have expanded to include another city outside Beijing, Langfang, as well as a county in Heilongjiang, a northeastern province. The districts of Beijing itself, the Chinese capital, have also closed.
More than 22 million people in total were ordered to stay inside their homes – double the number affected last January, when China’s central government blocked Wuhan, the central city where the virus was first reported, in an action that was seen as extraordinary.
The explosions remain small compared to the devastation other countries face, but they threaten to undermine the country’s Communist Party’s success in mastering the virus, allowing its economy to recover after last year’s downfall and its people to return to something close. for normal lives.
The urgency of the government’s current response contrasts with that of the authorities in Wuhan last year, who feared a reaction if they revealed the mysterious new diseases that were emerging. Local authorities have started a Communist Party conference like the one now canceled in Hebei, despite knowing the risk of the disease spreading among people.
Since Wuhan, officials have created a manual that mobilizes party cadres to respond quickly to new outbreaks by closing neighborhoods, conducting widespread tests and quarantining large groups when necessary.
“In the process of preventing and controlling infectious diseases, one of the key points is to seek the truth of the facts, to spread epidemic information openly and transparently and never to allow cover-up or underreporting,” said Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at a meeting on Friday from the State Council, China’s cabinet.
China, a country with 1.4 billion people, reported an average of 109 new cases a day last week, according to a New York Times database. Those would be welcome numbers in countries with much worse experiences – including the United States, which averages more than 250,000 new cases a day – but they are the worst in China since last summer.
The National Health Commission of China did not report any new deaths, but the World Health Organization, which uses information from China, registered 12 so far in 2021. The National Health Commission has not responded to requests to explain the discrepancy.
In Hebei, the province where the new outbreak is concentrated, the authorities declared last week a “state of war” that shows no signs of disappearing any time soon.
During the pandemic, the authorities seemed particularly concerned about Beijing, home to the Communist Party’s central leadership. Last week, Hebei party secretary Wang Dongfeng promised to ensure that the province was “the moat to safeguard Beijing’s political security”.
The outbreaks, occurring after so long with minimal cases, have heightened anxiety across China, where residents in most places felt that the pandemic was a thing of the past.
New cases have also been reported in Shanxi province in the north, and in Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces in the northeast. On Wednesday, Shanghai asked residents not to leave the city and announced that people who traveled to high-risk areas should be quarantined for two weeks and leave only after undergoing two tests, while those who traveled to areas of greater risk. at risk face quarantine in government facilities.
In Wuhan, it was rumored that the city could face a new blockade; although they seemed unfounded, officials remarkably stepped up temperature controls on some streets.
In Shunyi, a district in northeastern Beijing that includes Beijing International Airport, as well as rural villages, residents were forced to stay there because of the increase in cases just before the new year. At Beijing’s main railway stations, workers sprayed public spaces with disinfectant.
After a taxi driver tested positive over the weekend in Beijing, officials tracked 144 passengers for further testing, according to The Global Times, a state tabloid. Now, anyone entering a taxi or car service in Beijing needs to scan a QR code from their phone, allowing the government to locate them quickly.
The government continued plans to vaccinate 50 million people before the Lunar New Year next month, a holiday in which hundreds of millions of people traditionally cross the country to visit their families. On Wednesday, more than 10 million doses were distributed.
Even with vaccines, authorities have already warned people not to travel before the holiday.
“These measures, if well implemented, can ensure that a large-scale epidemic reaction does not occur,” said Feng Zijian, deputy director of the China Disease Control Center, at a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday.
While the new restrictions have upset millions, there appears to be no significant public resistance to them.
“As far as I’m concerned, I think measures like a blockade for the whole city are really very good,” said Zhao Zhengyu, a university student in Beijing who is now confined to her parents’ home in Shijiazhuang, where she was visiting while on vacation winter, when the outbreak broke out.
Many in the city feared a repeat of Wuhan’s blockade, but she seemed unfazed.
Ms. Zhao’s parents now work from home, buying groceries only at a market in her residential complex. She regretted not being able to meet friends or study in the library, but said that learning online has become routine.
“Maybe we got used to it,” she said.
The response underscored how quickly the government mobilizes its resources to contain outbreaks.
After the blockade was announced in Shijiazhuang on January 6, authorities collected more than 10 million samples for coronavirus testing in the next three days – almost one for each resident, officials said at a news conference in the city. These tests gave 354 positive results, although some of the cases were asymptomatic.
A second round of mass nucleic acid testing began on Tuesday.
“In fact, this is a type of wartime system – using wartime means for social control in times of peace – and during a pandemic this wartime system works,” said Chen Min, a writer and former newspaper editor who goes by the alias Xiao Shu. Mr. Chen was in Wuhan last year when the city was blocked.
The nature of the country’s governance has given it the tools to tackle the epidemic – even if some measures seem exaggerated.
“Chinese cities impose a residential system – the smallest have several hundred residents, the large ones have tens of thousands – and by closing the gates you can lock up tens of thousands of people,” Chen said in a telephone interview. “Now, whenever they encounter this type of problem, they certainly apply this method. This would be impossible in Western countries. “
Chris Buckley and Keith Bradsher contributed reporting. Claire Fu contributed research.