SHANGHAI: China raced on Tuesday Aug 9 to stamp out COVID 19 outbreaks in the tourist hubs of Tibet and Hainan, with the authorities launching more rounds of mass testing and closing venues to contain the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
Mainland China reported more than 828 new domestically transmitted cases across more than a dozen provinces and regions for Aug 8, with more than half of them in Hainan, a popular tourist destination, according to official data released on Tuesday.
Tibet, which had only one symptomatic case reported since the pandemic started more than two years ago, has also reported cases.
Parts of Tibet had mass COVID 19 testing on Tuesday, including its two largest cities Lhasa and Shigatse, where local authorities suspended large events, closed entertainment and religious venues, and shut down some tourist sites, including the Potala Palace.
On August 8th, Tibetan authorities reported one local patient with confirmed symptoms and 21 local asymptomatic infections. The rare infections struck a nerve among some residents, although the caseload was very small compared with elsewhere in China and globally.
Although my life and work aren't affected much and Lhasa took action very quickly, I was still shocked as Tibet had been COVID 19 free for about 920 days, said Yungchen, a 26-year-old Lhasa resident who was told by her employer to work from home.
She told Reuters she was worried because she didn't give her full name because we don't know when and where the infected people contracted the virus.
Yungchen said she doesn't expect a months-long lockdown in Lhasa, but she still bought rice and cooking oil. She bought enough to last for four to five days in case she is unable to dine out if COVID 19 restrictions are tightened.
Shigatse, a gateway city to the Everest region in Tibet, has had a silent period of three days during which people are banned from entering or leaving, and many businesses are suspended.
Both Lhasa and Shigatse were conducting a new round of mass testing, and the second round begins on Wednesday, state television said on Tuesday.
Three towns have started three rounds of mass testing in Tibet's western Ngari prefecture, a sparsely populated region that attracted many pilgrims to Mount Kailash, while the rest have started on their first, according to state television.