China on Wednesday suspended trains and buses in and out of Xinjiang, placing the province in western China virtually under lockdown, after less than 100 asymptomatic Covid-19 cases were reported.
Local officials in at least four cities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), including capital Urumqi, told residents not to leave as authorities doubled down on the country’s “zero-Covid” policy.
Xinjiang, the country’s largest province, with a population of around 22 million people, reported at least 97 new asymptomatic infections on Thursday for the day before, including 40 in Urumqi.
In all, 452 asymptomatic Covid-19 cases have been reported in the region since the latest outbreaks began in August, making the heavy-handed restrictions appear disproportionate to the number of cases.
The new curbs came in just 10 days ahead of the 20th national congress of the Communist Party of China, where the country’s leadership for the next five years will be chosen and President Xi Jinping is expected to secure a unprecedented third term.
With snap lockdowns and contact isolation, China’s strict “zero-Covid” policy has become Xi’s trademark anti-Covid strategy, even as other countries around the world are dropping their Covid-related measures.
Under Xi’s direction, provincial administrations in China have clamped down on even the smallest outbreaks at the cost of heavy economic setbacks and disruptions.
Last month, at least 27 people were killed and another 20 injured after a bus carrying passengers to a Covid-19 quarantine centre crashed on a remote highway in southwest China’s Guizhou province.
The news that the bus was carrying residents of an apartment complex to a quarantine centre, allegedly after only one Covid-19 case was detected in the complex, triggered outrage.
Authorities, however, have continued to implement the policy, saying it’s the only way to prevent widespread outbreaks and hospitalisations.
Liu Sushe, vice chairperson of the Xinjiang government, said at a press conference earlier this week that the region’s insufficient nucleic acid test capability was the “biggest weakness” against the spread of the infection.
“In addition, a lack of professional personnel and adequate equipment have hurt the quality of test results and caused some samplers to get infected themselves,” Liu was quoted as saying by the news website Caixin.
“The latest epidemic, which broke out on July 30 in Xinjiang, has spread to 37 corps of counties, cities and districts of 13 prefectures, which has become a major public health emergency with the fastest transmission speed, the widest coverage, the largest number of infected people, and the greatest difficulty in prevention and control in the history of Xinjiang, added Liu,” according to a report in the state-run Global Times.
