This is an unprecedented announcement in China.
The Covid-19 epidemic is now spreading to several provinces of China, including Beijing, the authorities announced on Thursday.
The country is facing the spread of the Delta strain, like many countries in Asia.
China, where Covid-19 was detected for the first time at the end of 2019, had practically stopped the epidemic by spring 2020 according to the authorities.
But the latest Sras-Cov2 outbreak, spotted on July 20 in Nanjing in eastern China, is now the most widespread geographically in the country for months.
The Chinese capital has announced two cases, the first for six months in the megalopolis.
A Haussmann-style palace, the Legendale hotel, was also closed in central Beijing following the discovery of an imported case.
This Thursday, employees in full suits disinfect the surroundings of the establishment using sprayers.
Read alsoConfinement, "iron fortress" and tests by the millions: in China, everything is done to avoid a resumption of the Covid
The majority of infected people had been vaccinated
Initially observed with nine employees of the Nanjing airport, the contagion has now affected 171 people in Jiangsu province, bordering Shanghai, and has spread to at least four other provinces. The vast and densely populated province of Sichuan, in the southwest of the country, reported three cases on Thursday. Another contamination has hit the country via its porous border with Burma, threatening its "zero tolerance" policy towards the virus.
In Jiangsu, authorities have placed hundreds of thousands of residents in lockdown, said Lu Jing, an official with the provincial epidemiological services. "Internet cafes, sports halls, cinemas, karaoke bars and even libraries in Nanjing have been closed," he told reporters. The metropolis has already tested twice its more than 9.2 million inhabitants and launched a third screening campaign on Wednesday, announced the town hall.
The majority of those infected had already been vaccinated, according to authorities in Jiangsu, raising concerns about the effectiveness of Chinese vaccines against the Delta strain. The most populous country in the world has already administered 1.6 billion doses of vaccines designed in China, but without specifying how many people were fully vaccinated. The goal is to immunize 65% of the population, or 1.4 billion inhabitants fully vaccinated before the end of the year.
