The city of Zhengzhou ordered its 12 million residents to take COVID-19 tests Wednesday after a handful of cases were detected, as China fights to stamp out virus clusters ahead of the Winter Olympics.
Everyone in Zhengzhou, which has been placed under a partial lockdown, must be tested to “thoroughly uncover infections hidden among the public,” the city’s government said in a statement Wednesday.
Zhengzhou has detected 11 cases in recent days.
The mass-testing order came as case numbers in the locked-down city of Xi’an fell to their lowest in weeks, with officials saying that the outbreak had been “brought under control.”
Xi’an’s 13 million residents have been under stay-at-home orders for the last fortnight.
“Although the case number has been high for many days, the rapid rise in Covid spread at community level has been brought under control compared with the early stages of the outbreak,” said Ma Guanghui, deputy director of Shaanxi province’s health commission, at a press conference.
“The epidemic is showing a downward trend.”
China has stuck to a rigid approach of stamping out COVID cases when they appear, with tight border restrictions and targeted lockdowns since the virus first emerged in the country in 2019.
But, with less than a month to go until the Olympics, a series of small outbreaks across the country has put the strategy under pressure.
Although the number of reported cases in China is very low compared with other nations, infections in recent weeks have reached a high not seen in the country since March 2020.
In Hong Kong, a cruise ship carrying 3,700 people was ordered back to port on Wednesday for virus testing after nine people were found to be close contacts in an Omicron variant outbreak.
Like mainland China, Hong Kong pursues a zero-COVID policy and maintains some of the world’s strictest measures.
The city has recorded 114 Omicron cases, with the vast majority identified at the airport or during the 21-day hotel quarantine that is mandatory for most arrivals.
But a small community outbreak traced to Cathay Pacific airline staff has sparked mass testing and contact tracing in recent days.
On Wednesday, those tracing efforts reached the “Spectrum of the Seas,” one of the vessels offering cooped-up Hong Kongers a “cruise to nowhere” that sails into international waters for short trips.
Health authorities said nine people on the cruise, which left on Sunday, were classified as close contacts and ordered the ship back to port a day early.
All on board—2,500 passengers and 1,200 crew—must test negative before they can disembark.
In Brazil, authorities in Rio de Janeiro announced the cancellation of next month’s carnival street celebrations due to an increase in COVID-19 cases brought on by the rapidly spreading Omicron variant.
It is the second year running that the coronavirus has forced the Rio street parade, which was due to take place from February 25 to March 1, to be called off.
“The street carnival in the form that took place in 2020, which did not happen in 2021, will not take place in 2022,” Mayor Eduardo Paes said in a live broadcast on social media platforms.
The street parade by musical bands called “blocos” is different to the better-known procession by samba schools that takes place in Rio’s Sambadrome.
The Sambadrome can hold 70,000 people in a stadium that allows authorities to control those that enter.
“The street carnival, given its nature and its democratic aspect, makes any type of control impossible,” said Paes.
In 2020, there were an estimated seven million revelers for the days-long street parades, according to the Riotour travel agency.