More than 100 million residents in a Chinese province are now trapped under a Wuhan-style lockdown due to the looming fears of a possible new COVID-19 outbreak.
The province of Jilin, which borders Russia and North Korea is now facing a sudden spike in the number of coronavirus cases. Earlier today, government officials in the region have already designated two hospitals to serve as coronavirus facilities to cater to the sudden increase in the number of suspected coronavirus cases.
Two cities in the province, Jilin and Shulan are now under strict quarantine measures as imposed by the government in order to prevent the virus from continuously spreading and possibly invading other neighboring areas.
News of the outbreak in the northeastern province came after a new infection has been reported in the city of Wuhan, the former epicenter of the virus. The new infection brings the number of new cases in Wuhan to seven.
Based on a video that was released by The Beijing News, health workers fully equipped with hazmat suits and personal protective equipment (PPE) were seen giving out coronavirus tests to people in Jilin province. This is part of the mass testing campaign that the local government is currently pushing through.
Meanwhile, officials from the city of Shulan, which is home to 700,000 people stressed that citizens who will be caught violating any of the lockdown protocols would be severely punished.
As of the moment, there are already more than 40,000 people from the two cities who have received nucleic acid tests while the government is still grappling for ways to prevent a second wave of the coronavirus outbreak and have a replay of what happened in Wuhan.
Earlier this month, a cluster of new infections emerged in the city of Shulan which prompted officials to also impose strict quarantine protocol to apply to the entire region of Dongbei, which covers the province of Jilin along with the provinces of Liaoning, and Heilongjiang. Dongbei has a population of more than 108 million and is now currently in strict lockdown.
As of today, five new infections were reported in the province of Jilin which has increased the total cases in the cluster to 39. The infections have all been traced back to one source, laundry worker who is 45 years old. However, authorities are still trying to unveil how the said person caught the killer virus.
Officials Fired After Cases Emerged.
According to Chinese media, upon the emergence of the cases in the province, six officials have been removed from their offices. It was not reported, however, on what grounds their removal was based.
Based on reports, since the 9th of May, Shulan has been on lockdown after 12 cases of confirmed
COVID-19 were reported in a span of two days.
Four days following the Shulan lockdown, Jilin also suspended all public transportation and shut down its borders. This is following six confirmed cases were reported which were also linked to the cases in Shulan.
Chinese authorities are now grappling to contain the cases in the region in order to prevent it from becoming a new fully-blown outbreak that would engulf all of China.
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