
On 23 January 2020, the
central government of China imposed a
lockdown
A lockdown () is a restriction policy for people, community or a country to stay where they are, usually due to specific risks that could possibly harm the people if they move and interact freely.
The term is used for a prison protocol that us ...
in
Wuhan
Wuhan; is the capital of Hubei, China. With a population of over eleven million, it is the most populous city in Hubei and the List of cities in China by population, eighth-most-populous city in China. It is also one of the nine National cent ...
and other cities in
Hubei
Hubei is a province of China, province in Central China. It has the List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP, seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland ...
in an effort to
quarantine
A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals, and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have bee ...
the center of
an outbreak of
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...
; this action was commonly referred to as the Wuhan lockdown (). The
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...
(WHO), although stating that it was beyond its own guidelines, commended the move, calling it "unprecedented in public health history".
The lockdown in Wuhan set the precedent for similar measures in other Chinese cities. Within hours of the Wuhan lockdown, travel restrictions were also imposed on the nearby cities of
Huanggang
Huanggang is a prefecture-level city in easternmost Hubei, Hubei Province, China. It is situated to the north of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and is bounded in the north by the Dabie Mountains and is named after Mount Huanggang, Huang ...
and
Ezhou
Ezhou ( zh, s= ) is a prefecture-level city in eastern Hubei Province, China. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 1,079,353, of which 695,697 lived in the core Echeng District. The Ezhou - Huanggang built-up (''or metro'') area w ...
, and were eventually imposed on all 15 other cities in Hubei, affecting a total of about 57 million people.
On 2 February 2020,
Wenzhou
Wenzhou; Chinese postal romanization, historically known as Wenchow is a prefecture-level city in China's Zhejiang province. Wenzhou is located at the extreme southeast of Zhejiang, bordering Lishui, Zhejiang, Lishui to the west, Taizhou, Zheji ...
, Zhejiang, implemented a seven-day lockdown in which only one person per household was allowed to exit once each two days, and most of the highway exits were closed.
On 13 March 2020,
Huangshi and
Qianjiang became the first Hubei cities to remove strict travel restrictions within part or all of their administrative confines. On 8 April 2020, the Wuhan lockdown officially ended. The lockdown, combined with
other public health measures in early 2020, succeeded in
suppressing virus transmission and averted a more widespread outbreak in China.
Subsequent lockdowns were introduced in other regions of China in response to localised outbreaks during the two years following. The largest of these was
Shanghai in early 2022.
Some Western observers, such as
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...
, were initially skeptical of the lockdown; however, as the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
spread to other countries and territories, similar measures were enacted
around the globe.
A series of
protests in mainland China against COVID-19 lockdowns began in November 2022.
On 7 December 2022, China's National Health Commission in a 10-point announcement stipulated that negative COVID-19 tests would no longer be required, apart from vulnerable areas such as nurseries, elderly care facilities and schools.
Background
Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province in China. With a population of over 11 million, it is the largest city in Hubei, the
most populous city in Central China, the seventh-most populous Chinese city, and one of the nine
National Central Cities of China. Wuhan lies in the eastern
Jianghan Plain, on the confluence of the
Yangtze River
The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...
and its largest tributary, the
Han River. It is a major transportation hub, with dozens of railways, roads and expressways passing through the city and connecting to other major cities. Because of its key role in domestic transport, Wuhan is known as the "Nine Provinces' Thoroughfare" () and sometimes referred to as "the Chicago of China".
2020 lockdowns
Hubei

In mid-December 2019, the Chinese Government acknowledged an emerging cluster of people, many linked to the
Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market
The Wuhan Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market (), also known as the Huanan Seafood Market (''Huanan'' means 'South China') or simply the Wuhan Wet Market, was a live animal and fish market, seafood market in Jianghan District, Wuhan, the capital of ...
in Wuhan, were infected with pneumonia with no clear causes. Chinese scientists subsequently linked the pneumonia to a new strain of
coronavirus
Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. Mild illnesses in humans include some cases of the comm ...
that was given the initial designation
2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). Some of the first symptoms appeared on 10 December, and 24 cases were later discovered to have connection to the seafood market.
Within three weeks of the first known cases, the government built sixteen large mobile hospitals in Wuhan and sent 40,000 medical staff to the city.
On 10 January 2020, the first death and 41 clinically confirmed infections caused by the coronavirus were reported.
By 22 January, the novel coronavirus had spread to major cities and provinces in China, with 571 confirmed cases and 17 deaths reported. Confirmed cases were also reported in other regions and countries, including Hong Kong, Macau,
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
,
Thailand
Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...
, Japan,
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
, and the United States.
According to
Li Lanjuan, a professor at Zhejiang University's school of medicine and member of the high-level expert team convened by the
National Health Commission
The National Health Commission (NHC) is a Ministries of the People's Republic of China, cabinet-level executive department of the State Council of the People's Republic of China which is responsible for formulating national health policies. It ...
, she had urged a lockdown on Wuhan on several occasions between 19 January and 22 January 2020 as a last resort to contain the epidemic.
At 2am on 23 January, authorities issued a notice informing residents of Wuhan that from 10am, all public transport, including buses, railways, flights, and ferry services would be suspended. The
Wuhan Airport, the
Wuhan railway station
Wuhan railway station () is one of the three main passenger railway stations of Wuhan, the capital of China's Hubei Province. It is located northeast of Wuhan's East Lake (Wuhan), East Lake, near a small lake called Yangchunhu, and is adjacent to ...
, and the
Wuhan Metro
Wuhan Metro is a rapid transit system serving the city of Wuhan, Hubei, China. Owned and operated by Wuhan Metro Group Co., Ltd., the network now includes 12 lines, 312 stations, and 518 kilometres of track length. With 1.35 billion annual passe ...
were all closed. The residents of Wuhan were also not allowed to leave the city without permission from the authorities.
The notice caused an exodus from Wuhan. An estimated 300,000 people were reported to have left Wuhan by train alone before the 10 am lockdown. By the afternoon of 23 January, the authorities began shutting down some of the major highways leaving Wuhan.
The lockdown came two days before the Chinese New Year, the most important festival in the country, and traditionally the peak traveling season, when millions of Chinese travel across the country.
Following the lockdown of Wuhan, public transportation systems in two of Wuhan's neighboring
prefecture-level cities
A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an administrative division of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC), ranking below a province of China, province and above a Counties of the People's Republic of China, county in China's ...
, Huanggang and Ezhou, were also placed on lockdown.
A total of 12 other county to prefecture-level cities in Hubei, including Huangshi, Jingzhou, Yichang, Xiaogan, Jingmen, Suizhou, Xianning, Qianjiang, Xiantao, Shiyan, Tianmen, and Enshi, were placed on traveling restrictions by the end of 24 January, bringing the number of people affected by the restriction to more than 50 million.
Lockdown timeline
* 23 January: transport in Wuhan, Huanggang and Ezhou severely restricted, including closure of public transit, trains, airports, and major highways
* 24 January: travel restrictions enacted in 12 additional prefecture-level cities in Hubei
* 13 February: the Chinese government has issued extension of order to shut down all non-essential companies, including manufacturing plants, in Hubei Province until at least 24:00 on 20 February.
* 20 February: the Chinese government has issued extension of order to shut down all non-essential companies, including manufacturing plants, and all schools in Hubei Province until at least 24:00 on 10 March.
* 13 March:
Huangshi removes controls and permits on road traffic within its urban area;
Qianjiang does the same for its entire administrative area.
* 14 March: Hubei Sanitation and Health Committee () Vice-chairperson Liu Dongru () announces that only Wuhan remains a "high-risk area", and that the entirety of the rest of the province is considered medium- or "low-risk areas". Any low-risk
township-level division
The administrative divisions of China have consisted of several levels since 1412, due to mainland China's large population and geographical area. In the People's Republic of China, the constitution provides for three levels of government. Ho ...
s, in addition to those medium- and high-risk divisions with ''no'' confirmed active cases, could lift their blockades and other mobility controls.
[ Per ]China News Service
China News Service (CNS; ) is the second largest state news agency in China, after Xinhua News Agency. China News Service was formerly run by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, which was absorbed into the United Front Work Department of the ...
reporting, by 14 March, besides the aforementioned Huangshi and Qianjiang, Yichang
Yichang ( zh, s= ), Postal Map Romanization, alternatively romanized as Ichang, is a prefecture-level city located in western Hubei province, China. Yichang had a population of 3.92 million people at the 2022 census, making it the third most pop ...
, Huanggang
Huanggang is a prefecture-level city in easternmost Hubei, Hubei Province, China. It is situated to the north of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and is bounded in the north by the Dabie Mountains and is named after Mount Huanggang, Huang ...
, Suizhou
Suizhou ( zh, s= , t= , p=Suízhōu), formerly Sui County ( zh, s=, t=, p=Suí Xian, Suixian, links=no), is a prefecture-level city in northern Hubei province, People's Republic of China, bordering Henan province to the north and east.
Etymolo ...
, Xiantao, Jingzhou
Jingzhou ( zh, s=, c=荆州, t=, p=Jīngzhōu) is a prefecture-level city in southern Hubei province, China, located on the banks of the Yangtze River. Its total residential population was 5,231,180 based on the Seventh National Population Censu ...
, Jingmen
Jingmen ( zh, t=, s=, w=Ching1mên2, p=Jīngmén) is a prefecture-level city in central Hubei province, People's Republic of China. Jingmen is within an area where cotton and oil crops are planted. The population of the prefecture is 2,873,687 (2 ...
, Shiyan
Shiyan ( zh, s=十堰 , p=Shíyàn) is a prefecture-level city in northwestern Hubei, China, bordering Henan to the northeast, Chongqing to the southwest, and Shaanxi to the north and west. At the 2020 census, its population was 3,209,004 of who ...
, Xiangyang
Xiangyang is the second-largest prefecture-level city by population in northwestern Hubei province, China. It was known as Xiangfan from 1950 to 2010. The Han River (Hanshui), Han River runs through Xiangyang's centre and divides the city n ...
, Tianmen, and Shennongjia
Shennongjia Forestry District ( zh, s=神农架林区, p=Shénnóngjià Línqū) is a county-level administrative unit (a "forestry district") in northwestern Hubei province, People's Republic of China, directly subordinated to the provincial gover ...
had announced "measures to lessen controls" and for industries to incrementally resume work and production.[
* 17 March: Jingzhou removes its permit requirements for transport, resuming normal transport operations, and also removes entry/exit controls on '' xiaoqu''.
* 18 March: The Hubei taskforce to control COVID-19 () announces that, with the exception of exit/entry into Wuhan and the province as a whole, all anti-COVID-19 traffic checkpoints within the province are to be removed.
* 22 March: Wuhan loosens its two-month lockdown.
* 25 March: Hubei lifts the lockdown outside of Wuhan,] although people will still need to confirm their "Green Code" health classification, designated by Alipay
Alipay () is a third-party mobile and online payment platform, established in Hangzhou, China in February 2004 by Alibaba Group and its founder Jack Ma. In 2015, Alipay moved its headquarters to Pudong, Shanghai, although its parent company ...
's monitoring system, to travel.
* 8 April: Wuhan lifts its lockdown, resumes all transportation, with residents intending to leave the city facing similar "Green Code" requirements as those in the rest of the province.
Elsewhere in China
Lockdowns by outdoor restrictions
On 1 February in Huanggang
Huanggang is a prefecture-level city in easternmost Hubei, Hubei Province, China. It is situated to the north of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and is bounded in the north by the Dabie Mountains and is named after Mount Huanggang, Huang ...
, Hubei implemented a measure whereby only one person from each household is permitted to go outside for provisions once every two days, except for medical reasons or to work at shops or pharmacies. Many cities, districts, and counties across mainland China implemented similar measures in the days following, including Wenzhou
Wenzhou; Chinese postal romanization, historically known as Wenchow is a prefecture-level city in China's Zhejiang province. Wenzhou is located at the extreme southeast of Zhejiang, bordering Lishui, Zhejiang, Lishui to the west, Taizhou, Zheji ...
, Hangzhou
Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...
, Fuzhou
Fuzhou is the capital of Fujian, China. The city lies between the Min River (Fujian), Min River estuary to the south and the city of Ningde to the north. Together, Fuzhou and Ningde make up the Eastern Min, Mindong linguistic and cultural regi ...
, Harbin
Harbin, ; zh, , s=哈尔滨, t=哈爾濱, p=Hā'ěrbīn; IPA: . is the capital of Heilongjiang, China. It is the largest city of Heilongjiang, as well as being the city with the second-largest urban area, urban population (after Shenyang, Lia ...
, and the whole of Jiangxi
; Gan: )
, translit_lang1_type2 =
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, translit_lang1_type3 =
, translit_lang1_info3 =
, image_map = Jiangxi in China (+all claims hatched).svg
, mapsize = 275px
, map_caption = Location ...
.
Closed management of communities
Many areas across China have implemented what is called "closed management" () on a community-basis. In most of the areas where this came into effect, villages, communities, and units in most areas would only keep one entrance and exit point open, and each household is allowed limited numbers of entrances and exits. In some places, night-time access is prohibited, effectively a curfew, and in extreme cases, access is prohibited throughout the day. People entering and leaving are required to wear masks and receive temperature tests. In some areas, vouchers are issued to the public, with vouchers and valid credentials. There are also areas where people are allowed to declare on WeChat
WeChat or Weixin in Chinese ( zh, c=微信, p=Wēixìn , l=micro-message) is an instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment mobile app, app developed by Tencent. First released in 2011, it became the world's largest standalone mobile a ...
mini-programs or public accounts and some apps at the same time. Courier and food delivery personnel are usually prohibited from entering. Control in communities with confirmed cases is more stringent.
List by the time of official announcement:
Impacts and reactions
The exodus from Wuhan before the lockdown resulted in angry responses on the Chinese microblogging website Sina Weibo
Weibo (), or Sina Weibo (), is a Chinese microblogging ( weibo) website. Launched by Sina Corporation on 14 August 2009, it is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 582 million monthly active users (252 million daily ...
from residents in other cities who were concerned that it could result in spreading of the novel coronavirus to their cities. Some in Wuhan were concerned with the availability of provisions and especially medical supplies during the lockdown.
The World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...
called the Wuhan lockdown "unprecedented" and said it showed "how committed the authorities are to contain a viral breakout". However, WHO clarified that the move was not a recommendation that WHO had made and authorities have to wait and see how effective it is. The WHO separately stated that the possibility of locking down an entire city in this way was "new to science".
The CSI 300 Index
The CSI 300 () is a capitalization-weighted stock market index designed to replicate the performance of the top 300 stocks traded on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. It has two sub-indexes: the CSI 100 Index and the C ...
, an aggregate measure of the top 300 stocks in the Shanghai
Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...
and Shenzhen
Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in the province of Guangdong, China. A Special economic zones of China, special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong ...
stock exchanges, dropped almost 3% on 23 January 2020, the biggest single-day loss in almost 9 months, after the Wuhan lockdown was announced as investors reacting to the drastic measure sought safe haven for their investments.
The unprecedented scale of this lockdown generated controversy, and at least one expert criticized this measure as "risky business" that "could very easily backfire" by forcing otherwise healthy people in Wuhan to stay in close conditions with infected people. Drawing a cordon sanitaire around a city of 11 million people raises ethical concerns. It also drew comparisons to the lockdown of the poor West Point
The United States Military Academy (USMA), commonly known as West Point, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York that educates cadets for service as Officer_(armed_forces)#United_States, comm ...
neighbourhood in Liberia during the 2014 ebola outbreak, which was lifted after ten days.
The lockdown caused panic in the city of Wuhan, and many expressed concern about the city's ability to cope with the outbreak. At the time, some experts questioned whether the large costs of such a vast lockdown, both financially and in terms of personal liberty, would translate to effective infection control. Medical historian Howard Markel argued that the Chinese government "may now be overreacting, imposing an unjustifiable burden on the population," and said that "incremental restrictions, enforced steadily and transparently, tend to work far better than draconian measures." Others, such as Anthony Fauci
Anthony Stephen Fauci ( ; born December 24, 1940) is an American physician-scientist and immunologist who served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022, and the chief medical ...
, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, defended the intent behind the lockdowns, saying that they have bought the world a "delay to essentially prepare better." Mathematical epidemiologist Gerardo Chowell of Georgia State University stated that based on mathematical modelling, "containment strategies implemented in China are successfully reducing transmission."
However, as the global COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
worsened, similar lockdown measures were enacted around the world. After northern Italy became a new hotspot of the outbreak in late February, the Italian government has enacted what has been called a "Wuhan-style lockdown," by quarantining nearly a dozen towns of 50,000 people in the provinces of Lombardy and Veneto. Iran, another developing hotspot for the coronavirus as of 25 February, has come under calls to assume similar lockdown procedures as China and Italy. Security experts such as Gal Luft of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington, have said that "The best way for Iran to deal with the disease is to do precisely what China has done – quarantine." and that "If Wuhan with its 11 million population can be under quarantine, so can Tehran with its 8 million"
E-commerce
E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...
contributed substantially to China's COVID-19 pandemic response by facilitating fast delivery of personal protective equipment, food, and daily use consumer goods during lockdowns.
By late 2020, public health experts estimated that the Wuhan lockdown prevented between 500,000 and 3 million infections and between 18,000 and 70,000 deaths. A November 2021 study examining data from the first half of 2020 estimated that over 347,000 deaths may have been prevented in China by COVID-19 prevention measures from 1 January 2020, to 31 July 2020. The estimate does not solely include deaths that would have occurred due to COVID-19. It includes deaths that were inadvertently prevented, such as from traffic collisions
A traffic collision, also known as a motor vehicle collision, or car crash, occurs when a vehicle collision, collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, road debris, or other moving or stationary obstruction, such as a tree, Utility pole ...
or air pollution
Air pollution is the presence of substances in the Atmosphere of Earth, air that are harmful to humans, other living beings or the environment. Pollutants can be Gas, gases like Ground-level ozone, ozone or nitrogen oxides or small particles li ...
.
See also
* 2022 COVID-19 protests in China
* 2022 Ürümqi fire
References
{{COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China
Lockdown
A lockdown () is a restriction policy for people, community or a country to stay where they are, usually due to specific risks that could possibly harm the people if they move and interact freely.
The term is used for a prison protocol that us ...
2020 disasters in China
Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020
Containment efforts related to the COVID-19 pandemic
History of Wuhan
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...