The Chinese province of Hebei announced it was shifting to “wartime mode” against an outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus and locked down travel between its capital Shijiazhuang and the nearby city of Beijing on Wednesday.
“Hebei reported 20 new confirmed COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] cases and 43 asymptomatic cases on Tuesday, making it the place with the most daily newly added cases in China. Among all the cases, 19 confirmed ones and 41 asymptomatic ones are from Shijiazhuang,” China’s state-run Global Times reported. Shijiazhuang has a population of about 11 million.
The emergency restrictions imposed on Shijiazhuang included “controls on highways passing through Hebei leading to Beijing and other provinces, stopping sales of railway tickets to Beijing, suspending classes in schools, implementing closed-off managements in residential communities in provincial capital Shijiazhuang, and taking sweeping nucleic acid tests.”
Ten highways linking the Hebei capital to Beijing and other cities were placed under
