(MENAFN) Following a community outbreak of the highly transmissible Omicron BA.5, the first instances of the Covid subvariant in China, the city of Xian in northwest China's Shaanxi province will be closed down beginning Wednesday, presenting the latest challenge to the country's zero-Covid policy.
The Xian city administration imposed a week-long curfew after a dozen locally transmitted cases, both symptomatic and asymptomatic, were discovered in the previous three days.
According to the notice made on Tuesday, all public locations, including schools, restaurants, gyms, cultural activity venues, and marketplaces, would close on Wednesday. While in-house eating has been prohibited, officials have stated that take-out orders will be permitted.
“Special places such as prisons, welfare homes, and old-age institutions will be closed for management,” a state media report stated. Strict restrictions on the movement of private and public transportation are also planned.
The inhabitants will most likely be subjected to repeated mass testing this week in accordance with China's zero-Covid standards.
Zhang Yi, an infectious diseases specialist at Shaanxi's Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, told the news site Cnwest.com that the newest epidemic in the province capital Xian was caused by the Omicron BA.5 strain.
“The Omicron BA.5 subvariant is even more transmissible and spreads even more quickly than the previous BA2.2 sublineage, and it has an even stronger capability to escape vaccines,” Zhang was cited as stating by the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.
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