Members of the disinfection team work at a shopping mall in Suihua City, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Jan. 18, 2021. A team of 25 volunteers has carried out disinfection tasks in Beilin District of Suihua City to curb the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic in the wake of newly emerged cases. (Photo: Xinhua)

Suihua will implement strict traffic controls to minimize the flow of people starting from Tuesday. Suihua is carrying out its second round of nucleic acid testing, and the epicenter Wangkui county, which is administered by Suihua, is rolling out its third round of tests.

Wangkui county has been under de facto lockdown, which is home to 500,000 people, for a week, and the measures will be extended by another week to further tame the spread of the virus in the province, local anti-epidemic authorities announced on Tuesday.

Residents are prohibited from leaving their homes and vehicles are banned from the roads, while stores will remain closed. Anyone violating the rules faces punishment, the notice said.

Sun Lixin, leader of a volunteer team in Suihua responsible for picking up patients who require dialysis and pregnant women and sending them to hospital, told the Global Times on Tuesday that his team had been expanded from 30 to 40 people due to the extension of the home quarantine period and the upgrading of management and epidemic controls in the city.

According to authorities on Tuesday, Suihua reported another 26 confirmed cases and 30 asymptomatic cases, mostly from Wangkui.

As of press time, the Global Times found Heilongjiang had imposed similar "lockdowns" in at least three cities - the city of Suihua, two districts of Qiqihar and Hulan district in the capital city Harbin.

The outbreak in Wangkui county has spread to at least eight regions in two other provinces - Northeast China's Jilin and East China's Shandong.

Due to the serious outbreaks, the traffic and population flow within the province has been crippled.

Residents from medium- and high-risk regions can go out normally if they have registered a local version of the health QR code, but are prohibited from travelling out of the medium- and high-risk regions. Heilongjiang Province recorded eight medium- and high-risk regions as of press time.

Buses from medium- and high-risk regions will cease operations. Locals must hold negative nucleic acid test certificates to leave these areas.

A university student in Xi'an surnamed Wang told the Global Times that his flight to Harbin has been cancelled three times in the past three days. Future flights to Heilongjiang Province in the coming week cannot be guaranteed, according to the airlines.

In the wake of the outbreak related to Wangkui county, the district of Fulaerji in the city of Qiqihar also imposed similar lockdown measures together with the district of Angangxi district. A round of citywide free nucleic acid tests is underway.

The city government required all residents to stay in their homes and family members to keep a safe distance from each other.