China: Beijing begins mass testing and partial lockdowns touching off food buying spree

BEIJING (AP) — China’s capital, Beijing, began mass testing of more than 3 million people on Monday and restricted residents in one part of the city to their compounds, sparking worries of a wider Shanghai-style lockdown.

While only 70 cases have been found so far in the city of more than 21 million since a new outbreak surfaced Friday, authorities have rolled out strict measures under China’s “zero-COVID” approach to try to prevent a further spread of the virus.

Some residents worked from home and many stocked up on food as a safeguard against the possibility that they could be confined indoors, as has happened in multiple cities, including the financial hub of Shanghai. The city of Anyang in central China and Dandong on the border with North Korea also started lockdowns as the omicron variant spreads across the vast country. ...

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