Meanwhile, authorities in Beijing and the provinces of Jilin and Shaanxi mandated more COVID-19 testing, while Hebei Province issued more traffic restrictions, in an attempt to contain local outbreaks.
Shanghai
The financial hub of Shanghai announced on Jan. 24 that the famous tourist site City God Temple would be closed due to the local outbreak. The government also locked down more residential compounds and streets—though it did not announce any COVID-19 cases in those regions.This led to local suspicion that authorities were covering up the outbreak in those areas.
One said that the family member of a nurse who works at Yangpu District Central Hospital tested positive for COVID-19. It is unclear whether the nurse also tested positive, but the hospital quarantined a large number of nurses as a preventative measure, according to the interviewee.
Another resident said that at the Liangcheng No. 4 nursery school in Hongkou district, the parent of a student was diagnosed with COVID-19. Upon contacting the school, a security guard told The Epoch Times that the school has been closed since Jan. 23, but that he did not hear of a parent being diagnosed.
A third resident said that a piano teacher who gave lessons in Xuhui district was recently diagnosed. He had contact with over 100 students from Jan. 10 to Jan. 18, according to the source.
All residents spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing reprisal for speaking to media.
On Jan. 23, director of Shanghai’s health commission Wu Jinglei was asked about this piano teacher during a press conference. Wu denied that there was such a COVID-19 case, but later admitted that authorities had tested 82 people identified as close contacts of the teacher.
Shanghai has 16 districts. Authorities have so far only reported infections in three of them: Huangpu, Baoshan, and Changning. But the above-mentioned interviewees and other residents spoke of infections they were aware of, in three other districts: Yangpu, Xuhui, and Hongkou.
The Epoch Times could not independently verify the information about COVID-19 cases. But local authorities did require that residents of the above-mentioned areas take COVID-19 tests.
Harbin
Harbin is the capital city of northeastern China’s Heilongjiang Province.On Jan. 26, the provincial government announced that most of the newly diagnosed COVID-19 patients were from three towns in Suihua city.
However, the outbreak in Harbin has worsened dramatically this week.
In Yutian community located in the Limin Development Zone—which has been designated as a high-risk region for contracting the CCP virus—several residents said to their knowledge, that there were more than 100 workers at the Zhengda food company who tested positive for COVID-19. Most of the workers live in Yutian.
As of press time, officials said 79 Zhengda workers tested positive for COVID-19.
A resident in nearby Mingliu Xincheng residential compound, Li Liang (pseudonym), told the Chinese-language Epoch Times that people who don’t work for the food company were also diagnosed in recent days in the Limin Development Zone.
“All residential compounds in the zone are locked down. Nobody can go out. There are people in my residential compound were also infected with the CCP virus,” Li said.
On Tuesday, some residents in the No. 4 and No. 5 buildings of Li’s complex were diagnosed with COVID-19 and the building doors were sealed off after the patients were moved away, Li said. These cases have not been disclosed by Harbin authorities.
Li complained that his family and neighbors had been forced to line up in the cold weather to take nucleic acid tests twice.
“It’s very cold,” Li said. On Tuesday, the temperature in Harbin ranged from minus 28 degrees Celsius to minus 12 degrees (about minus 19 degrees Fahrenheit to 11 degrees), according to the weather forecast.
Li said he didn’t know the real scale of the outbreak, but felt scared that the virus was quickly spreading among his neighbors.
Beijing
The Beijing city government said on Tuesday that all residents in Daxing district must take another round of nucleic acid tests.Xicheng is the district where most of the central Chinese government offices are located. The Beijing government did not announce any details about the new infections in Xicheng.
Jilin, Hebei
Jilin Province announced a COVID-19 death case on Tuesday: an 87-year-old woman from Tonghua city who died of respiratory failure the day prior. According to officials, the woman had heart disease before she was infected with the CCP virus.China’s official death toll has been called into question by experts.
Some Tonghua netizens shared videos on social media, allegedly showing three people who killed themselves at home.
On Tuesday, Shijiazhuang city in northern China’s Hebei Province announced that it launched new traffic control methods to guarantee that emergency vehicles can travel freely inside the city.
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