Businesses, schools and restaurants in Xi’an will close for a week, officials said Tuesday, after the Chinese city recorded a handful of Covid-19 cases. The capital of Shaanxi province has reported 18 cases since Saturday in a cluster driven by the rapidly spreading Omicron variant, according to official statements. Some residents in “high risk areas” were told to stay at home. Zhang Yi, of the Shaanxi Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told local media that the Omicron subvariant, known as BA.5, was behind the latest outbreak in Xi’an. “The Omicron BA.5 sub-variant is even more contagious and spreads faster than the previous BA2.2 sub-line and is more likely to escape antibodies,” Zhang told Chinese media on Tuesday. The discovery of BA.5 adds new complications to China’s strict zero-Covid policy, experts say. The Omicron subvariant is more contagious than BA.2.2, which was behind the recent outbreaks in Shanghai and Beijing. China is the latest major economy to cling to a zero-Covid strategy, implementing emergency lockdowns, quarantines and travel restrictions in a bid to stamp out new infections. City official Zhang Xuedong told a news conference that Xi’an will implement “temporary seven-day control measures” that will “allow society to calm down as much as possible, reduce mobility … and reduce the risk of cross-contamination.” . “We must fight against time and the virus … to protect ourselves from all potential dangers and hidden dangers and resolutely avoid an explosion in community spread,” Zhang said. Public entertainment venues, including pubs, internet cafes and karaoke bars will close their doors from midnight on Wednesday, the city government said in a statement. Restaurants will not be allowed to serve food indoors, but may continue to offer takeout services, it said. Schools are set to start summer vacation early and universities will lock down their campuses. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Xi’an – the home of the Terracotta Warriors – previously had one of the largest stay-at-home orders in China, which was shut down for a month between December and January as thousands of Covid cases were detected. City officials have come under fire for their handling of the lockdown, which has been plagued by food supply issues and medical tragedies resulting from patients being denied access to hospitals. Some residents expressed frustration over the closure on social media. “It’s like they’re addicted to lockdowns. What else are they doing?’ wrote one on the Twitter-like platform Weibo. “Here we go again,” complained another. China recorded 335 new domestic cases on Tuesday, most of which were asymptomatic, according to the National Health Commission (NHC). In Shanghai, city officials on Tuesday announced two new rounds of mass Covid testing of its more than 25 million residents over three days, citing the need to detect infections linked to a karaoke outbreak. “No household or person should be left out,” the city government said of the tests. Meanwhile, in central Anhui province, 1.7 million people in two counties were ordered to stay at home from Tuesday. With AFP and Reuters
