BEIJING, Dec 27 — China’s local symptomatic coronavirus cases crept up again, with most new infections reported in the northwestern city of Xian as it entered a fifth day of a lockdown.
The latest outbreak has led to 635 local confirmed cases in Xian, a city of 13 million people, during the Dec. 9-26 period, with no Omicron variant infections yet reported. The new case number marks the highest count of local symptomatic infections since the daily bulletin provided by the National Health Commission started to classify asymptomatic carriers separately from end-March, 2020.
In Xian, a two-hour flight southwest of Beijing, residents cannot leave the city without approval from employers or local authorities, and households can send only one person to shop for necessities every two days. Other family members may not leave home unless they have essential jobs or urgent matters to attend to, approved by employers or communities.