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China’s southern island province of Hainan began mass Covid-19 testing on Sunday, locking down more of the province’s more than 10 million residents as authorities scrambled to contain multiple outbreaks driven by Omicron, including the worst in the capital Sanya, Often referred to as “China’s Hawaii”.
From Aug. 1 until noon on Sunday, the number of cases in the province quickly spread to the island in the South China Sea, where it surpassed 1,100.
All flights from Sanya were canceled on Sunday, leaving thousands of tourists stranded in the city and fewer in adjoining beach towns.
At least 10 cities and regions have declared “static management” or lockdowns.
Thousands of tourists were sent back to their hotels from Sanya airport, where they are now required to stay for at least a week, lodging and eating at their own expense.
“Faced with the deteriorating Covid-19 situation, Chinese flight tracking platform Fei Changzhun showed that all flights in and out of Sanya…were cancelled on Sunday, a day after the city announced temporary static management. According to railway authorities, railways outside Sanya It was also out of service on Saturday,” the official tabloid Global Times reported on Sunday.
Local media reported that the government was trying to set preferential prices for stranded tourists.
Sanya has begun mass testing — 971 confirmed cases have been reported — with more than a million residents and tourists being asked to get tested every day.
At least three other towns, including Wanning, Danzhou and Lingshui, have declared lockdowns, with local residents ordered to stay indoors and public transport banned from Sunday.
“The current round of the epidemic in Sanya is still at a severe level, and the virus variant strains have strong transmission ability and rapid transmission. The epidemic prevention and control situation is complicated and severe,” an official from the local health bureau said at a news conference in Sanya on Sunday.
The Global Times reported that the virus strain has been identified as the Omicron BA5.1.3 variant, the first reported mutation in the country.
The central fishing port of Yazhou, where the outbreak originated, was likely imported through trade with overseas fishermen.
The rapidly spreading outbreak in Hainan is the latest challenge for the Chinese government to balance its strict “zero outbreak” or “dynamic customs clearance” policy with economic growth. The lockdown is likely to hit the domestic tourism industry hard, which has only recently started to pick up against the backdrop of China’s strict Covid policies.
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