One COVID-19 case locks down Peking University

BEIJING — Chinese authorities locked down a major university in Beijing on Wednesday after finding one COVID-19 case as they stick to a “zeroCOVID” approach despite growing public discontent.

Peking University students and faculty were not allowed to leave the grounds unless necessary and classes on the main campus — where the case was found — were moved online through Friday, a university notice said. Still, some people could be seen entering and leaving the main campus Wednesday in the Chinese capital’s Haidian district.

Beijing reported more than 350 new cases in the latest 24-hour period, a small fraction of its 21-million population but enough to trigger localized lockdowns and quarantines under China’s “zero-COVID” strategy. Nationwide, China reported about 20,000 cases, up from about 8,000 a week ago.

Peking University has more than 40,000 students on multiple campuses, most in Beijing. It was unclear how many were affected by the lockdown. The 124-yearold institution is one of China’s top universities and was a center of student protest in earlier decades.

Lockdowns elsewhere have sparked scattered protests. Earlier this week, videos posted online showed crowds pulling down barriers in the southern city of Guangzhou in a densely built area that is home to migrant workers in the clothing industry.

Chinese officials and state media have stressed that the government is fine-tuning but not abandoning what it calls a “dynamic” zero-COVID policy, after rumors of an easing sparked a stock market rally earlier this month.