The approximately 900,000 residents of the Hanyang district were told to stay in their homes from today, a spokesman from the area’s CDC told Bloomberg News by phone.

Another official at Hanyang’s health bureau said the lockdown would last until Sunday, and that all non-essential businesses had been told to shut.

Supermarkets and pharmacies will remain operational.

Photos posted on Chinese social media appeared to show barriers erected in the district, ostensibly to keep people from leaving as the movement restrictions are imposed.

Wuhan recorded 18 Covid-19 cases in the community yesterday.

While a minuscule tally in other parts of the world, which have shifted to living with the virus, it is a significant number in China, where authorities continue to try and wipe out outbreaks.

The zero-Covid policy, which has its origin in the early days of the pandemic in Wuhan, uses lockdowns, mass testing, and restrictions on travel to contain the spread of the virus. The approach is leading to widespread social and economic disruption in China.

After eliminating the virus by April 2020, Wuhan saw a long period of no cases where life in the city that saw the world’s first Covid-19 lockdown returned to normality.

That spell ended in July this year, when officials locked down the Jiangxia district, an area that’s home to almost 1 million people on Wuhan’s outskirts.