China imposes partial lockdown in parts of Wuhan as COVID-19 outbreak widens

Under its controversial 'zero-COVID' policy, China on Wednesday locked down one of its central districts in Wuhan after detecting cases of the novel coronavirus. As many as 9,00,000 residents of Hanyang district were under the stringent clampdown and were ordered to stay at home as authorities launched rigorous testing and contact tracing to separate those who may have contracted the respiratory virus, according to several reports. Hanyang’s health bureau was reported as saying that the lockdown would last until Sunday. All non-essential operations and businesses were asked to shut down in order to curb the spread of the virus. Supermarkets and pharmacies were exempted. 

Videos circulated on the Chinese Twitter-like platform Weibo, barricades were installed on the boundaries of the district, and people's movement was restricted. Wuhan as of Wednesday recorded an estimated 18 COVID-19 cases. It remains unclear whether those who contracted COVID-19 were symptomatic. Despite three years into the pandemic, the Chinese authorities on Wednesday resorted to desperate measures to wipe out potential outbreaks. Since the restoration of normalcy, Wuhan had witnessed a lengthy period of zero COVID-19 cases since its first stringent lockdown that caught the attention of the world. 

WHO-China Joint Mission sent to Wuhan in 2021

The World Health Organization (WHO) sent a WHO-China Joint Mission to Wuhan in 2021 to probe the origin of the novel coronavirus. As the COVID-19 respiratory disease spread worldwide, the WHO dismissed the umpteen theories, including that the novel coronavirus might have accidentally leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), the then epicenter of the virus. WHO's mission that visited the city to gather the evidence, insisted that the virus may have migrated naturally from animals and jumped onto humans.

"Early cases identified in Wuhan are believed to have acquired infection from a zoonotic source as many reported visiting or working in the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market. As of 25 February 2021, an animal source has not yet been identified," the WHO said in its report. As per the WHO, at some point early in the outbreak, some cases generated human-to-human transmission chains that led to the community outbreak prior to the implementation of the comprehensive control measures that were rolled out in Wuhan.