Parts of Tibet are running mass COVID-19 testing on Tuesday, including the Chinese autonomous region's two largest cities, to fight a rare flare-up, while clusters were growing in tropical Hainan and in Xinjiang in China's west.
Subvariants of the highly transmissible Omicron are challenging China's strategy of swiftly blocking the spread of each nascent cluster. Regions that have seen relatively few cases for more than two years now battling outbreaks, raising the risk of persistent tight restrictions as the economy weakens.
Provincial authorities must adopt all measures to achieve by Friday "COVID zero at the community level" where no new cases emerge in communities outside quarantined areas, Hainan's government said in a statement late on Monday. "We still have many shortcomings and weaknesses in COVID epidemiologic investigation, testing and treatment," Zhou Changqiang, the head of Hainan's health commission, told state television in a programme that aired late on Monday.
Lhasa, Tibet's biggest city and provincial capital, has suspended large events and closed various entertainment and religious venues.