HONG KONG: China fights its biggest outbreak of coronavirus in months, imposing blockades on the hardest-hit areas, quarantining more than 20 million people and urging citizens to give up unnecessary travel as they approach Lunar New Year holidays in February.
The narrowing, which occurs during the coldest winter in northern China in a generation, underscores the official shortage nearly a year after authorities closed the city of Wuhan to contain the initial outbreak.
On Tuesday, China’s National Health Commission reported 42 new cases of symptomatic local transmission infection, one day after registering 85 cases, its highest daily count in six months.
The bulk of recent cases have been detected in the northern province of Hebei, which surrounds the Chinese capital Beijing.
Local authorities in the city of Langfang on Tuesday placed its five million residents in domestic quarantine for seven days while conducting tests throughout the city. Authorities had imposed similar measures in the provincial capital of Shijiazhuang last week, banning people and vehicles from leaving the city and stopping public transportation within the city.