Everyone in a district of 1.8 million people in China&s southern metropolis of Guangzhou was ordered to stay home for virus testing Saturday and a major city in the southwest closed schools as another rise in infections was reported.Nationwide, a total of 11,773 infections were reported over the previous 24 hours, including 10,351 people with no symptoms.

China&s numbers are low, but the past week&s increase is challenging a &zero-COVID& strategy that aims to isolate every infected person, AP reported.The quarantine for travelers arriving in China is to be shortened to a minimum of five days from seven as part of changes in controls announced Friday to reduce their cost and disruption.

But the ruling Communist Party said it would stick to &zero COVID& even as other countries ease travel and other curbs and try to shift to a long-term strategy of living with the virus.A total of 3,775 infections were found in Guangzhou, a city of 13 million, including 2,996 in people who showed no symptoms, according to the National Health Commission.

That was an increase from Friday&s total of 3,030, including 2,461 without symptoms.Under the changes, some foreign business people and athletes visiting China would be allowed to move within a contained area without a quarantine period.

Rules on who counts as a contact of infected people are to be more focused, reducing the number affected, AP reported.Economists and public health experts say Beijing might be able to start winding down &zero COVID& in mid-2023 but needs to vaccinate tens of millions of elderly people before controls on foreign visitors coming into China end.Guangzhou, 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of Hong Kong, shut down schools and bus and subway service across much of the city as case numbers rose over the past week.

Flights to the Chinese capital, Beijing, and other major cities have been canceled.In the southwest, the industrial city of Chongqing closed schools in its Beibei district, which has 840,000 people.

Residents were barred from leaving a series of apartment compounds in its Yubei district but the city gave no indication how many were affected.Public frustration and complaints that some people are left without access to food or medicine have boiled over into protests and clashes with local officials in some areas.President Xi Jinping&s government has refused to import foreign vaccines and defied requests to release more information about the source of the virus, which was first detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019.The post China tightens restrictions as rise in virus cases reported first appeared on Ariana News.