Xian is breathing once more as Beijing and Shanghai hold their breath. The long confinement of the city of Xian, capital of Shaanxi province, was lifted on Monday January 24. The 13 million inhabitants of the ancient imperial capital had been strictly confined to their homes since December 22 following the discovery of a focus of infection which infected a total of more than 2,000 people. But at the same time, a second epidemic focus was spotted in a district of Beijing and a fairly large cluster in the country’s economic capital, Shanghai.
“Xian is finally back to normal life”
“That’s it, I can leave my campus, confided, relieved, a professor of the University of the North-West in Xian, the city is finally getting back to normal life. » Since Monday, all restrictions have been lifted in Xian, and air and rail links with the rest of the country have been restored. Shops have also been able to reopen and public transport to resume. Xian had already started lifting some restrictions last week as the number of infections dropped.
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This month-long confinement in Xian is the longest and most extensive imposed in China since the historic quarantine of the metropolis of Wuhan (11 million inhabitants, Hubei province), the first epicenter of the pandemic, from January 23 to April 8, 2020. The handling of the lockdown in the city world-famous for the First Emperor’s underground army has come under heavy criticism. Many residents complained on social media regarding a lack of food supplies and chaotic distribution. Many lonely migrant workers were left without food. In addition, an eight-month pregnant woman lost her baby because she might not be admitted to a hospital.
Beijing faces new outbreaks of infection
At the same time, while Xian is breathing freely once more, the Chinese capital, Beijing, finds itself faced with a new epidemic focus ten days before the Winter Olympics. In the Fengtai district, in the south of the city, two million residents were screened on Sunday and Monday, said the municipality, which banned people at risk from leaving the city. “We must do everything we can to stop the spread (of the virus) as quickly as possible, by taking firm, strict and decisive measures”, justified in front of the press a person in charge, Xu Hejian. Since last weekend, around forty cases of Covid have been identified in Beijing, the majority are of the Delta strain but several are of the Omicron strain.
Shanghai is on high alert
In Shanghai, 1,300 kilometers from the capital, 22 cases were identified this weekend, triggering an alert among local authorities. Shanghai infectious disease specialist Zhang Wenhong has warned that the very high contagiousness of the Omicron variant might cause a sudden outbreak of the epidemic. Especially since Shanghai remains one of the few gateways to China (along with Tianjin, Beijing and Canton).
Already, the health officials of this megalopolis of 25 million inhabitants have taken additional control measures at the airport, alerted the hospital services and prepared new quarantine zones. In the eyes of the Chinese authorities, mail and imported frozen products remain the major cause of contamination from abroad. Even if this hypothesis is challenged by the World Health Organization (WHO).