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Five million residents of a central Chinese city started home confinement today in a new lockdown to curb the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant of the coronavirus, AFP reports.
Beijing, according to state media, is on high alert for new outbreaks as it prepares to host the Winter Olympics next month, sticking to a “zero-Covid” strategy of targeted lockdowns, border restrictions and lengthy quarantines.
The fast-spreading Omicron strain presents a fresh challenge, with two cases in Anyang — the newly locked down city in Henan province — linked to a growing infection cluster in the northern metropolis of Tianjin.
