Following an increase of COVID-19 cases in the region, which have been linked to the highly infectious omicron variety, China on Friday ordered the evacuation of the city’s 9 million people in the northeastern city of Changchun.
Residents are expected to stay at home, with one member of the family authorized to leave the house every two days to go shopping for food and other supplies. Every citizen will be subjected to three rounds of mass testing, while non-essential businesses have been shut down and public transportation has been halted, according to the Associated Press (AP).
Chinese authorities have maintained their draconian approach to the pandemic, which has been in effect for most of the past two years in places like Yucheng, which has 500,000 people in the eastern province of Shandong. This is despite earlier indications that officials would be implementing more targeted measures.
On Friday, China reported another 397 instances of local transmission throughout the country, with 98 of them occurring in Jilin province, which borders Changchun, the country’s car manufacturing capital. Since the new epidemic began late last week, there have been more than 1,100 cases reported throughout the province as a whole.
Only two instances were recorded inside the city limits of Changchun on Friday, bringing the city’s total number of reported cases in recent days to 78. In accordance with China’s “zero tolerance” policy to the epidemic, authorities have frequently said that they would shut down any neighborhood where one or more cases are discovered.
There have been an additional 93 confirmed cases in the adjacent city of Jilin, which has the same name as the surrounding province. Several authorities have already ordered a partial lockdown in the city and have cut off transportation connections to nearby areas.
After a cluster of illnesses was detected on campus, and students complained on social media that individuals who tested positive were being held in school libraries and other facilities that were in bad condition, officials at the Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology University were fired.
As reported by the Chinese official network CCTV, 74 confirmed cases have been reported at the school, and more than 6,000 individuals have been placed in quarantine.
Student hazmat suits were visible on the ground as they waited to be moved in the cold and dark, according to aerial photographs.