© Chine Nouvelle/SIPA/Shutterstock China's Xi'an has further tightened lockdown measures and rolled out a fifth round of mass testing as it reported the highest daily count of local symptomatic Covid infections in a Chinese city since March 2020. Xi'a

Chine Nouvelle/SIPA/Shutterstock

China's Xi'an has further tightened lockdown measures and rolled out a fifth round of mass testing as it reported the highest daily count of local symptomatic Covid infections in a Chinese city since March 2020.
Xi'an, an ancient city in northwestern Shaanxi province, reported 175 new local symptomatic cases on Tuesday.
This month, the city has reported 810 local symptomatic cases -- making it one of the worst community outbreaks in China since the initial wave of coronavirus infections in Wuhan, the original epicenter of the pandemic.
Authorities responded by enacting sweeping measures with an intensity and on a scale rarely seen since Wuhan, as the Chinese government sticks rigidly to its zero-Covid strategy before the Beijing Winter Olympics in February.
Xi'an rolled out city-wide testing and placed its 13 million residents under a strict lockdown last week, closing schools, public venues and transportation except essential services like supermarkets and hospitals. Residents were banned from leaving their homes except for urgent reasons such as medical emergencies.
The lockdown is China's largest since Wuhan, which sealed off 11 million people.
As cases continued to surge, Xi'an further tightened lockdown measures on Monday, requiring all residents to stay at home unless permitted to go outside for mass testing. Previously, each household was allowed to send one designated person out to buy groceries every two days.

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