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Coronavirus pandemic
ChinaScience

Third Chinese city placed under Covid-19 lockdown as Beijing chases zero cases before Winter Olympics

  • Heihe, a city on the Russian border, has ordered people to stay at home and imposed travel curbs following one new case
  • Two other cities, including Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu, were also locked down this week as the country sticks to its zero tolerance approach

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A police checkpoint in Lanzhou, one of the locked down cities. Photo: AFP
Agence France-Presse
China placed a third city under lockdown on Thursday to tackle Covid-19, with around six million people now under orders to stay home as Beijing chases zero cases before the upcoming Winter Olympics.

The country has taken a zero tolerance approach to the virus since it first emerged in central China in 2019, stamping out emerging flare-ups with border closures, targeted lockdowns and strict quarantines.

Although the hard-line measures have kept the number of new cases far lower than most countries, the world’s most populous nation is currently grappling with small outbreaks in at least 11 provinces.

The resurgence prompted officials this week to lock down Lanzhou – the capital of Gansu with a population of over 4 million – and Ejin in the Inner Mongolia region.

After confirming one new case, authorities in Heihe in Heilongjiang province followed suit on Thursday, ordering people to stay at home and forbidding residents from leaving the far northeastern city except in emergencies, according to a local government statement.

Officials in the city – which borders Russia to the north – have also begun testing 1.6 million residents and tracing close contacts of the infected person, the statement said.

State media reported that bus and taxi services had been suspended and vehicles were not allowed to leave the city.

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