Chinese Communist Party officials ordered the roughly 110 million residents of central China’s Henan province to enter various degrees of lockdown this week to contain a province-wide outbreak of the Chinese coronavirus, the state-run Global Times reported Wednesday.
Henan’s local Communist Party officials declared a “partial lockdown” for the entire province on January 5 that suspended cross-provincial travel and temporarily closed all public venues. At least three cities in Henan province — Yuzhou, Shangqiu, and Zhengzhou — observed local lockdown mandates as of Wednesday.
Yuzhou’s 1.1 million residents have been forbidden from traveling out of the city since January 2 due to the community’s coronavirus epidemic. A statement issued by Yuzhou’s local government on the evening of January 4 suggested the city remained under tight anti-virus restrictions as of January 5. As quoted by Reuters, the press release revealed “households in Yuzhou could only send one person to shop for daily necessities at designated venues every two days, and in high risk areas people were told to stay home and rely on deliveries.”
Zhengzhou — which is the capital of Henan province and home to 12.6 million people — entered a strict lockdown on the night of January 3 after local health officials allegedly detected just two new coronavirus infections in the metropolis earlier the same day.
In addition to observing stay-at-home orders imposed on the evening of January 3, all Zhengzhou residents “in risky areas [for coronavirus] were told they could not leave town without approval from COVID control authorities,” Reuters reported on January 5 citing Chinese state television reports on January 3.
“Residents in other parts of the city were advised against travelling out of Zhengzhou unless it was essential,” the news agency relayed.
“It [Zhengzhou] has also shut down bus and taxi services and closed shopping malls, museums and tourist attractions,” China’s state-run Global Times reported on January 5.
The government of Shangqiu, home to 7.3 million people, issued a notice on the morning of January 5 prohibiting all residents from leaving the city for non-essential reasons. Shangqiu residents seeking permission from local Communist Party officials to travel out of the community for a business trip or to receive medical treatment may be allowed to exit the city, though they must present a negative coronavirus test result to Shangqiu authorities taken within 48 hours of their intended departure time.
“Two counties in Henan, under the jurisdiction of Luoyang city and Zhoukou city, also sealed up a few areas,” Reuters revealed on January 5, referring to coronavirus lockdowns.
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