Xu said her family would get all of their food delivered and her children would learn at home.
“My children can’t go to school and because it happened all of a sudden,their teachers could not arrange online classes,” she said. “So now I act as the teacher of Chinese,math,physics,and English,although I’m not good at them.”
Similar restrictions are now set to fall on pockets throughout the country as infections flare up from Inner Mongolia in the north to Hunan in the south.
Medical workers in hazmat suits have also been seen outside Beijing’s Changping district where 23,000 people have been placed in lockdown,an unfamiliar sight in China since the early months of the pandemic.
The government is expected to maintain its COVID-zero strategy in the mainland and Hong Kong despite its neighbours and all major economies moving to a “living with COVID” strategy.
Authorities are also on alert for any disruption to the sixth plenum of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee. The annual meeting starts on November 8 and will focus on the party’s role in the country’s history,according to Chinese State Media.
Eliminating the coronavirus is expected to be a key achievement that President Xi Jinping takes to the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress next October as he seeks a third term in power.
The Winter Olympics in February will only allow domestic fans and all participants will be put into a “closed loop” bubble for the duration of the Games,with compulsory vaccines and daily testing,according toan Olympics playbook released on Tuesday.
The COVID-zero measures will also apply to the global financial hub of Hong Kong,frustrating companies that have called for relief from the 21-day quarantine period for business travellers.
Loading
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Tuesday she was not concerned and was “full of confidence about Hong Kong’s future”.
“This is to give confidence to the central authorities that it is safe to open the border,” she said.
The quarantine measures combined with high vaccination rates and sharp lockdowns have effectively neutralised the virus since mid-2020. Chinese medical authorities are now expanding the country’s vaccine rollout program after fully vaccinating more than 1 billion people.
Children as young as three will start to receive the Sinovac and Sinopharm shots this week as older residents receive their booster shots to protect against the more infectious Delta variant.
But another disease is also starting to raise concerns among medical experts. China reported 21 human infections with the H5N6 subtype of avian influenza this year to the World Health Organisation compared with only five in 2020. The number is lower than the previous strain H7N9 in 2017,but the infections are more serious and have caused at least six deaths. Other patients have become critically ill.
With Reuters
Get a note direct from our foreigncorrespondentson what’s making headlines around the world.Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.