China [Beijing], February 28: Chinese authorities have imposed secret lockdowns in areas neighboring Beijing as a preventive measure for covid 19. There was no official announcement for the fresh constraints just a week prior to the Winter Olympics. Xiong'an New Area, 100 km southwest of Beijing whose population of 1.2 million is no longer permitted to enter or leave their housing complex as stated by the local virus prevention staff to AFP.

Though, China has reported a smattering amount of cases of covid 19 in the last couple of days, this lockdown has ostensibly has been constrained so that no new cases are reported while the Olympics is going on.

Evidently, the Fengtai district of Beijing has reported the highest number of covid 19 cases, so Chinese authorities have imposed restrictions on the movement of residents with the undertaking that covid 19 examining was taking place for the whole locality.

The lockdown is anticipated to last for a week as stated by the virus prevention staff of the Xiong County, as reported by the AFP. To control the proliferation of the virus, China's zero covid approache was established earlier and was announced publicly on city websites and local authorities but this time no announcement was made officially.

Zero tolerance regulations are so strict that anyone buying medicine for cold, fever, cough and other maladies has to go for tests. The medicine purchases are done through a smartphone app that requires information to be swiped when they purchase health supplies or plainly enter pharmacies. Even for buying simple cold or vitamin medicine one will require a prescription henceforth – China firmly controls sales of medication.

Further, a notice was published at Beijing pharmacies that anyone who bought four types of medication in the last two weeks has to go for the mandatory test within 72 hours. Failure to do so would affect their health status on the phone and thus will have an impact on their going out and daily life, as highlighted in the notice.

Trains and flights have been suspended to restrict travel from areas of high concern. Six neighbourhood areas near the capital city Beijing have been concentrated for lockdown and officials affirmed that they would conduct a second round of mass testing in Fengtai district of two million residents.

These types of severe measures only reflect how much the government is concerned about such a low number of virus cases, for the Olympics' which opened in Beijing on 4th February.

With the approaching event, China wants to eliminate the outbreak in several major cities, including Beijing. Cities such as Xi'an and Anyang have encountered firm lockdowns in the last weeks, with locals restricted to their homes, not before numerous rounds of mass testing were completed and flare-ups repressed.

China Twitter users on Weibo were seen enquiring for further details about constraints, while others queried the proportion of the evaluation.“Is there a need? Why can't we go home if the area is deemed low risk” as stated by a Weibo user. Another user tweeted that he will not be able to go home for Lunar New Year.

The entirety of the participants will be tested on arrival and daily and will be completely secluded from the general public.

Altogether 3000 persons including athletes, team officials, media personnel, and participants organisers have arrived for the prestigious Olympic Games.

In the meantime, Winter Olympics will adhere to a stern“closed-loop” bubble that isolates everyone who is part of the Games from the Chinese population in order to minimize the possibility of an outbreak of the infection.

The total number of coronavirus cases pushed up to 89 with two athletes and eight-team officials arriving in China testing positive.

China took strict measures to control the outbreak of coronavirus, in fact, they kept the neighbouring areas near their capital city Beijing under month-long lockdown.

China zero-covid strategy was always successful involving targetted lockdown, mass testing and strict border control.

Coronavirus's first outbreak was in China which is the reason China is taking such stern precautionary measures, while secondly the big event – the ongoing Winter Olympics.

Already some positive cases have made China more alert and they randomly do mass testing and keep the members of the Olympics in complete isolation from China's large population.

No interaction mean no outbreak and china has even imposed controls on pharmacy purchases with a smartphone app which make testing of persons, who has certain symptoms, mandatory within 72 hours.

Failure to comply would result in the health status of such individuals being downgraded on the state run mobile health App which would in turn limit and restrict the persons movements and freedoms.

The Winter Olymmpics is a momentous occasion and even, currently taking place in Beijing, and Chinese authorities controlling all outcomes to make the Winter Olympics a successful despite the loss of freedom of its own people. – Suhail Gupta

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