Beijing: China locked down housing compounds across Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi after finding new coronavirus cases, amid fears of another outbreak just after the end of a recent spike in cases in Beijing.
The city of 3.5 million reported six confirmed infections on Thursday and Friday, along with 11 cases where the people didn’t display any symptoms, breaking a 10-day streak of zero new domestic cases in China. The source of the new infections is unclear and the local government did not say if the cases are linked.
Residents have been banned from leaving their housing compounds, with provisions made for those who are sick or in special situations, Caixin reported, citing a government notice. Shopping malls and hotels will be closed and people arriving from other provinces have to be quarantined for seven days.
Separately, Zhejiang province in China’s east reported July 15 that a person who traveled from Xinjiang was found to be infected, but did not display symptoms. China doesn’t include asymptomatic infections in its official case count.
From Friday, all outbound travelers from Urumqi airport will have to show a negative nucleic acid test results to prove they are virus-free, and all inbound visitors will be required to do the same starting Monday. Buses were also halted in Changji, a nearby city.
So far, Xinjiang has only had a very small outbreak, with a total of 82 cases reported. This mysterious flare-up is another signal that the virus is spreading in some unexplained ways, adding pressure to countries around the world.
Xinjiang is a landlocked region which borders eight countries including Mongolia, Russia, and Pakistan, raising concerns over whether the initial source of this new outbreak case came from an adjacent country. An earlier outbreak in Harbin in northern China was traced back to Chinese people returning from Russia with the virus.
Little is known about how the coronavirus has played out in Xinjiang, where foreign media reporting is severely limited. The Chinese government’s crackdown on Muslims there after a series of attacks by Uighur separatists has drawn international criticism, and strict restrictions and tight surveillance have been in place for years.
China this week announced sanctions against U.S. officials including Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz in response to Washington’s move to punish top Chinese officials involved in the crackdown in Xinjiang.
The approach to Xinjiang’s outbreak so far avoids the complete lockdown that was employed in Wuhan, where the virus first emerged. Residents are still theoretically allowed to leave Xinjiang, though hundreds of flights in and out have been canceled, according to People’s Daily.
China has refined its approach to the pandemic as new clusters emerge. The recent outbreak in Beijing was brought under control without a citywide lockdown. Instead, officials used an aggressive mass testing and contact tracing campaign to identify higher risk areas which were subjected to targeted restrictions. – Bloomberg
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