Chinese city sealed off to squash virus outbreak

BEIJING, China (AFP) — China has sealed off a large city near Beijing, cutting transport links and banning millions of residents from leaving, as authorities move to stem the country’s largest COVID-19 outbreak in six months.

The pandemic has so far broadly been brought to heel by Chinese authorities since its emergence in Wuhan in late 2019, with small outbreaks swiftly snuffed out with mass testing, local lockdowns and travel restrictions.

Around 100 new COVID-19 cases have been discovered in the past week in Shijiazhuang, a city of several million in Hebei province whose surrounding areas take the total population to 11 million.

All vehicles and residents were banned from leaving the city and train services suspended, authorities announced late Thursday.

Footage from state broadcaster CCTV showed residents being swabbed by medical workers in hazmat suits at community centers in Shijiazhuang while queues outside stretched around the block.

Virus control staff stood guard at highways entering the city, which had mostly been blocked by barricades, the images released on Thursday showed.

Hebei province reported 33 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Friday in addition to 51 from the day before -- pushing the nationwide daily total to the highest figure in five months.

The vast majority of the infections were found in Shijiazhuang.

Schools have been closed and citywide mass testing of residents is under way, having sampled over 670,000 people as of Thursday morning, state media reported.

Staff members were filmed giving injections of China’s recently approved Sinopharm vaccine, which has a 79 percent efficacy rate.

Three officials from the city’s worst-hit Gaocheng district -- the epicenter of the latest outbreak -- have been disciplined for apparent negligence in virus control, a sign of the pressure on local authorities to squash the virus wherever it emerges.

CoronaVac Chinese-developed COVID-19 vaccine CoronaVac showed at least 78percent effectiveness in final-stage clinical trials in Brazil, officials announced Thursday, saying they would apply for emergency approval from the Brazilian regulatory agency to begin a vaccination campaign.

‘’This is a historic day, a day of hope,’’ Sao Paulo state Governor Joao Doria told a news conference announcing the results.

He said his state’s vaccination campaign would begin on January 25, though that will require approval from federal regulatory agency Anvisa.

The Butantan Institute, Sao Paulo’s leading public health center, said it would apply for emergency approval by Friday.

The vaccine, developed by Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac, showed effectiveness of 78 percent in Phase 3 testing on 13,000 volunteers in the Brazilian study, officials said.

And no one who received it developed a severe case of COVID-19, Doria added.

Turkey, which also helped carry out Phase 3 tests of CoronaVac, said last month the vaccine had shown effectiveness of 91.25 percent in its trials.

Sinovac has not yet released worldwide results from the tests, which are also being carried out in Chile and Indonesia.

The efficacy rate reported by Brazil for CoronaVac is well below the 95 percent reported for the vaccines from US pharmaceutical firms Pfizer and Moderna.

However, CoronaVac is easier to deploy because it does not have to be stored at extremely low temperatures.