Numerous shopping malls, schools and kindergartens remained closed. In large parts of the city, restaurants were only allowed to offer take-out meals. Beijing is in its most difficult situation since the start of the pandemic, said Liu Xiaofeng, vice director of the Beijing Disease Control Agency.
Meanwhile, the southern Chinese metropolis of Guangzhou imposed a lockdown on Baiyun’s largest district. The 3.7 million inhabitants were only allowed to leave their apartments after submitting a negative corona test. Public transport has also been shut down. The measures will initially last until Friday.
Beijing reported more than 600 new infections on Monday. In Guangzhou, the most affected city in the country for weeks, about 9,000 corona cases were added. About 27,000 infections have been reported nationally.
While the rest of the world tries to live with the virus, China continues to implement a strict zero-Covid strategy of lockdowns, daily mass testing, strict surveillance, contact tracing and enforced quarantine. Nevertheless, the number of new infections has recently increased sharply because new omicron variants spread more easily. Although the authorities recently announced that they would relax the rules, the situation in the country seems to be getting more and more confusing lately.
(SDA)