23mn in China under Covid-19 lockdown

BEIJING: China on Tuesday locked down a city of 4.9 million residents near Beijing as authorities continued to battle a surge in Covid-19 infections across the country, many of them linked to cases from the northern province of Hebei bordering the capital city of Beijing.

The lockdown of Langfang city was announced on Tuesday, with authorities saying residents have been put under home quarantine for a week and will be subject to mass nucleic acid testing.

Chinese experts fear the new wave of infection could be spreading undetected in villages with nearly 70% of the new 305 new Covid-19 infections in Hebei being farmers, a state media report said on Tuesday.

Guan and Sanhe, two counties under Langfang’s jurisdiction that border Beijing, had already announced home quarantine measures.

The new measures mean that three cities in Hebei including capital Shijiazhaung – with 11 million residents - and Xingtai with more than 7mn population have now been locked down with no residents allowed to leave unless necessary.

Stringent closure and control measures have been put in place in the three cities, state media reports said as highways from the cities have been shut down.

China’s National Health Commission (NHC) on Tuesday reported 55 new Covid-19 cases for Monday, down from 103 a day earlier. The Hebei province accounted for 40 of the 42 locally transmitted infections, with the capital and northeastern Heilongjiang province reporting one local case each, the NHC said.