BEIJING: China placed Lanzhou, a northwestern city of four million, under lockdown Tuesday in a bid to stamp out a domestic coronavirus spike, with residents told not to leave home except in emergencies.
“All types of residential communities are to implement closed management,” said the local government in a statement, as China reported 29 new domestic infections.
On Monday, Gansu, a northwestern province heavily dependent on tourism, closed all tourist sites Monday after finding new COVID-19 cases.
Residents in parts of Inner Mongolia have been ordered to stay indoors due to an outbreak there.
The National Health Commission reported 35 new cases of local transmission had been detected over the past 24 hours, four of them in Gansu.
Another 19 cases were found in the Inner Mongolia region, with others scattered around the country.
Meanwhile, the Beijing marathon has also been postponed until further notice, organizers said, shortly after the Wuhan Marathon too was deferred amid concerns of a domestic outbreak as the country seeks to stamp out coronavirus infections and return to zero cases ahead of the Winter Olympics.
China has in the past, employed lockdowns, quarantines, and compulsory testing for the virus throughout the pandemic and has largely stamped out cases of local infection while fully vaccinating 1.07 billion people in its population of 1.4 billion.
