Yiwu,the world's largest commodities hub located in East China's Zhejiang Province, has shut residential compounds and suspended public transportation as it enters a period of "static management" starting from Thursday.

A notice released by the local government said the COVID-19 flare-up is severe. In order to completely cut off virus transmission chain, the city government decided to impose three days of "static management."

The residents are asked to stay in their homes and their daily necessities will be delivered to their doorsteps. Except medical institutes and agencies that provide essential livelihoods, other public venues are temporarily shut down, the notice said.Companies that can guarantee a closed-loop management can continue their operation, otherwise they should suspend operations. Besides this, schools and universities are required to suspend in-person classes and campus activities.

The train station in Yiwu will also suspend selling tickets with Yiwu as destination from Friday. 

Since August 2, the COVID-19 in Yiwu surged in a relatively rapid speed with 476 positive cases being reported as of press time. The daily cases found on Wednesday was 21.

The virus strain from COVID-19 cases in Yiwu is the Omicron BA.5.2 variant with faster and higher transmission, the local health authority said on Friday.

Global Times