Authorities closed all churches in the Chinese capital of Beijing on Friday (Jan. 8) and the highway to Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province, after new cases of the Chinese communist virus were detected.
The number of new cases is small, far lower than in many countries around the world at the height of the virus pandemic, and insignificant compared to the numbers in Wuhan at the beginning of last year’s outbreak. Still, Beijing authorities are taking very drastic measures, including mass virus testing and locking down high-risk neighborhoods, in an attempt to quash the virus backlash in one fell swoop. But sporadic infections continue to occur, and the cold winter has not been able to stop them.
All 155 churches in the city have been closed, a Beijing official said. Some highway exits and entrances have also been taken out of service.
rural areas near Beijing have been ordered to stop preparations for the upcoming Chinese New Year celebrations next month.
Shijiazhuang Airport in Hebei province, which borders Beijing, canceled most flights Friday. The city of 11 million people has halted the movement of people in and out.
Shijiazhuang has launched a citywide virus sweep, with everyone in the city being tested for nucleic acid. City authorities have issued a ban on all public gatherings and ordered vehicles and people in those high-risk areas not to leave their areas to avoid spreading the virus outside.
An official communist notification of the outbreak issued Friday showed that the number of cases dropped by 10 from 63 the previous day. The cumulative number of confirmed cases nationwide is 87,331, and the death toll remains at 4,634.
However, the actual figures are much higher than these official figures. The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention conducted a serological test in Wuhan in April and found that 4.43% of Wuhan residents were antibody carriers. Using this projection, about 480,000 of Wuhan’s 11 million people have been infected, which is almost 10 times the number officially notified.
Wuhan saw cases of new coronavirus infections in late 2019 and initiated a city closure on Jan. 23, 2020, which lasted 76 days before and after.
Taiwanese scholar Zeng Weifeng pointed out Thursday that the original academic community expected that mainland China would be plunged into social unrest last year because of the virus pandemic, but such a situation did not actually happen. He believes the reason for this is that the mainland authorities have used the epidemic to increase their control over society, reducing the likelihood of the crisis leading to social problems through the use of technological controls and speech censorship.
However, the assistant professor at Taiwan‘s Tamkang University’s Institute of Mainland China Studies believes that overall, “the CCP is still in a repressive stability.”
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