China locks down thousands in North to contain Covid-19 outbreak

 The lockdown comes a day after a warning from National Health Commission officials that the outbreak would continue to worsen after spreading to 11 provinces in about a week

China locked down a county that has seen the most Covid-19 cases in the nation’s latest delta outbreak, as an initial flareup in the northwest quickly spirals into a nationwide surge. Ejin, a county in China’s Inner Mongolia region, asked its 35,700 residents to stay home from Monday and warned of civil and criminal liabilities should anyone disobey the order, state broadcaster CCTV reported, citing a local government statement. The small county bordering Mongolia is the current outbreak’s hotspot, home to nearly one-third of the more than 150 infections found over the past week in the mainland.

The lockdown comes a day after a warning from National Health Commission officials that the outbreak would continue to worsen after spreading to 11 provinces in about a week. China reported 38 Covid infections on Monday, half of which were found in Inner Mongolia. The capital Beijing — which has seen a dozen new cases traced back to the northwest — has all but banned entry by people arriving from anyplace in the country that’s reported locally-transmitted Covid cases in China. People who have to visit Beijing from these areas must provide a negative Covid test conducted no longer than two days earlier, and undergo two weeks of unspecified health monitoring.