Free groceries delivered to residents of China's Xi'an amid lockdown

Authorities in Xi'an, capital of China's Shaanxi province, have started delivering free groceries to residents in the city amid an ongoing lockdown imposed in the wake of the latest Covid-19 resurgence.

Many residents in the city, which has a population of 13 million, received free food items provided by the local government on Wednesday. This latest measure is helping residents go through lockdown at home with less anxiety, Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday.

The city reported 151 confirmed locally transmitted Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, bringing the total number of infections in the latest resurgence since December 9 to 962.

On December 23, Xi'an imposed a citywide lockdown in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.

To contain the outbreak more quickly, authorities in Xi'an upgraded control measures on Monday, ordering all residents to stay indoors and refrain from gathering except when taking nucleic acid tests.

All vehicles except those used for Covid-19 control and supporting people's livelihoods have been banned from roads.

To ensure the supply of daily necessities, the city began preparing and delivering free essential food items on Tuesday night.

A large number of people worked overnight preparing, packaging and delivering vegetables, meat and eggs so that the items could be sent to residents as soon as possible.

With the help of four supermarkets and one farm produce market, the Qujiang New District prepared 130 tonnes of meat, 70 tonnes of eggs and 650 tonnes of vegetables for its 130,000 residents.

"Each household receives 11 types of daily necessities, including meat, eggs and vegetables, which can meet their demands for three days," said Wang Fan from the district's pandemic prevention and control headquarters.

At 8 a.m. Wednesday, the city launched another mass nucleic acid testing, with many pandemic control workers continuing to work through the day despite having worked through the night.

"On one hand, we need to ensure that people can get through the home quarantine with fewer worries, and on the other hand, we need to race against the clock to screen for more infections and stamp out the virus as soon as possible," Wang said.

--IANS

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