Jilin province has been one of the hardest hit by the outbreak in China.
Closed schools, teleworking and packages sprayed with disinfectant at the doors of the house.
The scenes that took place two years ago in China, in the harshest period of confinement that tried to stop the expansion of covid-19, have returned to some large cities in the Asian giant.
Millions of people across the country are now facing harsh restrictions due to the rebound in coronavirus cases.
Among the areas affected by new measures are some neuralgic points of the country such as the technology hub Shenzhen and the megacity of Shanghai.
Even large multinational companies have stopped some operations as China expands the confined zones.
Toyota, Volkswagen and Apple supplier Foxconn are among the companies affected and there are concerns that supply chains might be disrupted once more.
China on Tuesday reported a record of more than 5,000 cases, the majority in Jilin province, prompting authorities to completely lock down the area.
The 24 million residents of this northeastern province they received quarantine orders last Monday.
It is the first time China has restricted an entire province since the closure of Wuhan and Hebei at the beginning of the pandemic.
Jilin residents have been banned from moving and anyone who wants to leave the province must apply for a police permit.
The measures come a day following he imposed a five-day lockdown on the 12.5 million residents of the southern city of Shenzhenwhere all bus and metro services are suspended.
On Tuesday, the authorities of the city of Langfang, which borders the capital Beijing, as well as Dongguanin the southern province of Guangdong, also immediately imposed closures.
Businesses in many of the affected regions have been told to close or have their employees work from home, unless they are providing essential services such as food, utilities or other necessities.
Foxconn, which makes iPhones for Apple, It halted operations in Shenzhen on Monday, saying the date of its resumption “will be informed by the local government.”
Some residential areas are enforcing strict rules regarding who can enter.
lot pthose are being sprayed with disinfectant once more at the doors of the houses.
China has seen relatively fewer covid cases thanks to its strict “covid zero” policywhich allows you to carry out rapid lockdowns, mass testing and travel restrictions whenever an outbreak arises.
However, the rapid transmissibility of the omicron variant has made sticking to that approach increasingly challenging.
Since the beginning of the year, China has notified more cases of internal transmission than in all of 2021.
China’s top infectious disease expert Zhang Wenhong called the recent outbreaks “the most difficult period in the past two years of fighting Covid.”
And he stated in a widely circulated online post that they were still in “the initial stage of an exponential increase”.
But he added that while it was necessary for China to maintain its “Covid-zero” strategy to control outbreaks for now, “this does not necessarily mean that we will continue to implement the strategy of lockdowns and mass testing forever.”
