World News: Omicron forces China to lock down province – Gulf Digital News

World News: Omicron forces China to lock down province – Gulf Digital News

BEIJING: A northeastern Chinese province yesterday imposed a rare travel ban on its population as the region’s Omicron outbreak helped drive China’s tally of new local COVID-19 cases so far this year higher than any recorded in 2021.

Mainland China reported 1,337 new domestically transmitted COVID infections with confirmed symptoms on March 13, the National Health Commission (NHC) said on Monday. That brought the registered total this year to more than 9,000, compared with 8,378 in 2021, according to Reuters calculations.

Over 30% of the 2022 cases were found in the northeastern province of Jilin, which is scrambling to rein in the fast spread of the Omicron BA.2 sub-variant of the coronavirus.

Jilin, which spans 187,400 sq km, or the equivalent of two Portugals, announced that all its 24.1 million residents were prohibited from travelling out of or into the province, or across different areas within the province.

Those who indeed must travel must notify the local police, and will be subject to a quarantine requirement upon returning, according to a provincial government statement.

In the past week, new COVID cases have been reported in Beijing and the financial hub Shanghai - China’s most populous cities - as well as in the provinces of