Since January 2, a total of 304 positive cases have been reported in Hebei, most of which were in Shijiazhuang, according to official figures. The city is located just 289.6 kilometers southwest of Beijing – about a three-hour drive, or an hour by express train.
At a press conference on Thursday, municipal officials announced a ban on outbound travel for all residents and vehicles of Shijiazhuang, except for emergencies.
Within the city, gatherings were banned, all schools were suspended and residential communities and towns were also closed.
The restrictions are some of the strictest imposed in China, as the country largely contained the spread of the coronavirus in March. It is reminiscent of the draconian lockout during the initial outbreak in central Wuhan city, where the coronavirus was first detected in December 2019.
The outbreak in Shijiazhuang comes a few weeks before the New Year holiday, the most important annual festival in China, in which millions of people usually go home to reunite with their family.
Last year, the Chinese government shut down Wuhan two days before the Moon New Year, but millions of people have already left the city, possibly transporting the virus to their hometowns across the country.
This year, for fear that the lunar New Year trips could accelerate the spread of the virus again, an increasing number of local governments have discouraged residents from traveling home for the holidays, while civil servants and employees of state-owned enterprises have been ordered to stay unless it is special. approval is given.
Strict measures
In Shejiazhuang, authorities declared last week that the city was entering a ‘war time’ to fight the spread of the virus. A city-wide coronavirus test drive was soon rolled out for all its 11 million inhabitants.
On Thursday night, two medical teams – each with about 100 members – with test kits and other equipment from the eastern provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang were sent to Shijiazhuang to assist the effort.
In addition, a hospital in the city was cleaned and designated to treat Covid-19 patients, with three more hospitals assisting, Meng said.
Rapid and drastic measures such as mass testing, extensive contact detection and strict closures have defined China’s response to sporadic local outbreaks.
Last October, the eastern port city of Qingdao tested more than ten million people in just four days, more than a dozen local cases.
In late October, Kashgar prefecture in the far western region of Xinjiang instituted mass tests for nearly 5 million people and instituted closure measures after a single asymptomatic case of the coronavirus was reported.
Potential weak link
But this time, some public health experts in China said the rise of the virus in Shijiazhuang was detected too late, with rural areas being a weak link in preventing and controlling epidemics.
The first confirmed case was detected on January 2 – a 61-year-old female villager on the outskirts of Shijiazhuang. In the ensuing days, the majority of the new cases were detected in towns in the same district.
Lu Hongzhou, co-director of the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center at Fudan University, told the state-run Global Times that the outbreak of Shijiazhuang shows that villages are a vulnerable link.
While the virus spread quietly, villagers continued to attend rallies. Local health authorities have found that many infections are associated with funerals, weddings and other social gatherings, the report said.
“Apart from wedding banquets, some villagers also held religious activities at home every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, or at least twice a week, in which dozens of people, mostly the elderly, participated,” said a local Epicenter official. Shijiazhuang’s outbreak said quoted.
CNN’s Beijing bureau is attributed to reporting.