Chengdu to implement citywide lockdown at 6pm

Imaginechina

To contain the outbreak of COVID-19, Chengdu, capital city of southwest China's Sichuan Province, will impose a citywide lockdown starting at 6pm today, according to a notice released on the government website today. The city will also carry out citywide nucleic acid testing from September 1 to 4.

All residents must stay at home beginning at 6pm, but each household can send one person out to buy daily necessities once a day with a negative PCR test result within 24 hours. People requiring medical treatment and other special needs can leave their communities after getting consent from their neighborhood committees.

Citizens should not leave the city unless it is absolutely necessary. For those who must leave, a negative nucleic acid test report within 24 hours is required.

During the lockdown, enterprise employees should work from home except for public-service enterprises, such as water, electricity, fuel oil, gas, communications, sanitation, grain, oil, meat and vegetable supply, as well as industrial enterprises that are under "closed-loop" management and responsible for important production tasks.

Except for supermarkets, pharmacies, medical institutions, fresh food delivery, e-commerce platform delivery and catering companies (which can only provide delivery services) that guarantee the basic needs of citizens, all businesses will be temporarily closed. All employees working on site must have a negative PCR test report within 24 hours.

The frequency of bus and subway operations will be adjusted. Residents who have special reasons or virus prevention jobs can take public transportation with a negative test result from the previous 24 hours. Taxis and shared bicycles will still be available.

Chengdu, which had a permanent population of more than 21 million at the end of 2021, reported 106 confirmed local cases and 51 asymptomatic infections on Wednesday. There has been 766 infections since the latest COVID-19 resurgence began on August 25.