Chinese city locks down 2 areas as cluster grows

PTI, Jun 1, 2021, 11:52 AM IST

Beijing: China’s southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou has imposed lockdowns on two neighbourhoods after an additional 11 cases of COVID-19 were detected in the city.

The surrounding province of Guangdong has already required anyone wishing to travel to other parts of China to produce a negative test for the virus taken within the previous 72 hours.

Guangzhou has 15 million people but it wasn’t immediately clear how many people were affected by the lockdowns announced on Tuesday.

More than 30 cases of local transmission have been detected in the city over recent days, making it the latest virus hotspot in a country that has mostly eliminated domestic infections through mask mandates, strict case tracing, widespread testing, and strict lockdowns when cases are detected.