China locks down another city as Omicron spreads ahead of Beijing Olympics

Beijing — Five million residents of a central Chinese city were confined to their homes Tuesday while another megacity shuttered all non-essential businesses, as the country battles a spate of coronavirus outbreaks including from the Omicron variant. Beijing is on high alert as it prepares to host the Winter Olympics next month, sticking to a zero-COVID strategy of targeted lockdowns, border restrictions and lengthy quarantines to try and eliminate the disease.

While those measures have kept the number of new cases far lower than virus hotspots in the United States and Europe, China is currently facing local flare-ups in multiple cities.