China locks down city as COVID cases surge around the world

China locks down city as COVID cases surge around the world

BEIJING: China shut down a city of 13 million people yesterday in a bid to extinguish a tiny COVID-19 outbreak and chase its zero-case goal, as other nations around the globe battled huge infection surges driven by the Omicron variant.

Early studies from South Africa and Britain gave some cause for hope, however, indicating Omicron infections appear to result in fewer hospitalisations compared with the Delta variant. But despite that initial data, scientists have warned that Omicron is highly contagious, driving record infection numbers in many countries and forcing governments to tighten virus controls.

China locked down the northern city of Xi’an-home to the world-famous Terracotta Warriors-to stamp out a cluster of several hundred cases. “I think it is necessary to have the lockdown,” a Xi’an resident, who wanted to be identified only as Yuan, told AFP.

Omicron has not been reported in Xi’an, with only dozens of cases of the less infectious Delta variant detected in the city of 13 million people in recent days. But the Chinese government, in pursuit of its zero-case strategy ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics, has reacted with typical forcefulness and ordered all Xi’an residents to stay indoors.

Only one person per household can go outside every