COVID-19: Third Chinese city goes into lockdown

Beijing: The COVID-19 cases spiralled in China ahead of the next month's Beijing Winter Olympics as authorities effectively put Anyang under lockdown, the third city after Xian and Tianjin, confining over 20 million people to their homes to arrest the spread of the contagion.

Anyang, a city of 5.5 million population in the country's central Henan province, has upgraded its epidemic control measures.

It is the third city to go under the lockdown after the tourist centre Xian and Tianjin port city, where a cluster of Omicron cases was detected in the last few days, denting China's zero Coronavirus case policy.

As many as 84 Coronavirus infections, all locally-transmitted, have been confirmed in Anyang since the first case was reported on Saturday, official media reported on Tuesday.

The Anyang city authority said that between midnight Monday to early Tuesday, there were 58 newly confirmed local COVID-19

infections.