China locks down 13 million people in the central city of Xi’an, as the nation struggles to contain the frequent Covid-19 outbreaks that threaten its economic recovery.
- The Xi’an city government required all residents to stay at home and identify one person per household to collect critical supplies once every other day.
- The lockdown is one of the toughest imposed in China since authorities banned the movement in Wuhan in early 2020 when the global pandemic started.
- It comes only months before the Beijing Winter Olympics kickstarts, a politically sensitive event whereby the government has banned visitors from foreign countries.
- China posted a total of 73 new local cases of Covid-19, 63 of which were discovered in Xi’an. The nation has so far administered nearly 2.7bn doses of Covid-19 vaccines.
The Delta variant remains more prevalent than the new Omicron strain in China.
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Source: FT
