COVID-19: China places 1.7 million inhabitants in confinement

The epidemic revival in the anhui province comes at a time when the Chinese economy slowly recovers from Shanghai’s confinement, lifted at the beginning of June after several months.

Le Monde with AFP

As part of a revival of the COVVI-19 epidemic in certain regions, China has placed 1.7 million inhabitants in confinement in the province of Anhui (East), where some 300 new Case of the disease was reported on Monday, July 4. Beijing adopts a firm approach to the virus, with large screening campaigns, compulsory quarantines and confinements as soon as a few cases appear.

The epidemic revival in Anhui comes at a time when the Chinese economy slowly recovers from Shanghai’s confinement, lifted at the beginning of June after several months. Two cantons of the province, SI and Lingbi, announced confinements which concern more than 1.7 million inhabitants. They can only get out of their home to be tested.

Public television CCTV broadcast images of empty streets in the canton of if this weekend, with residents queuing to pass their sixth PCR test in a few days. On Monday, the Ministry of Health reported for the Anhui of 287 new cases, which brings the total to more than a thousand for the province in recent days.

The provincial governor, Wang Qingxian, urged the authorities to “implement rapid screening” as well as a quarantine and a reporting of cases as soon as possible.

centers of centers Quarantine

Monday, the neighboring province of Jiangsu, in the east, also reported 56 new cases in four cities. Photos broadcast on social networks show hundreds of people dressed in full protective combinations in the process of queuing in Wuxi, a city in Jiangsu. They seem to wait to get on buses to join quarantine centers.

Some photos show babies dressed in blue protective clothes, worn on their shoulders by people hanging out with suitcases and waiting in front of a hospital in stifling heat. In Wuxi, temperatures have reached 36 degrees in recent days.

The number of cases remains very low in China compared to the vast majority of other countries. But the authorities intend to limit the circulation of the virus as much as possible due to the limited medical resources in certain places and the relative low vaccination rate in the elderly.

This strategy, however, weighs heavily on the Chinese economy. Only notable relaxation taken in recent weeks by the authorities: quarantine on arrival in the country is now reduced to ten days, against at least twenty -one previously.

/Media reports.