On 23 January 2020, the central government of China imposed a lockdown in Wuhan and other cities in Hubei in an effort to quarantine the center of an outbreak of COVID-19; this action was commonly referred to as the Wuhan lockdown (Chinese: 武汉封城; pinyin: Wǔhàn fēng chéng). The World Health Organization (WHO), although stating that it was beyond its own guidelines, commended the move, calling it "unprecedented in public health history".^[2]

This article needs to be updated. The reason given is: Needs more information about lockdowns from 2021 to present. (November 2022)

Quick Facts Date, Location ...

COVID-19 lockdown in China
Part of the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China
Top: Montage of various scenes in Wuhan during the outbreak Bottom Map Legend:   Areas that have been or are being blocked due to the outbreak   Areas not yet blocked but with more cases
Date	23 January – 8 April 2020 (2 months, 2 weeks and 2 days; most of Hubei ended on 25 March 2020; Wuhan lockdown ended on 8 April 2020)
Location	Hubei, China
Caused by	COVID-19 pandemic
Goals	Quarantine the region of the COVID-19 outbreak
Methods	Suspension of all public transport, and control of movement in and out of the city
Resulted in	About 13 million quarantined in Wuhan; over 57 million in fifteen other cities[1]
Wuhan in Hubei province, China

Close

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 and Ezhou, and were eventually imposed on all 15 other cities in Hubei, affecting a total of about 57 million people.^[3][4] On 2 February 2020, Wenzhou, 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.^[5] On 13 March 2020, Huangshi^[6] and Qianjiang^[7] 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.^[8] The lockdown, combined with other public health measures in early 2020, succeeded in suppressing virus transmission and averted a more widespread outbreak in China.^[9][10]

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, were initially skeptical of the lockdown;^[11][12] however, as the COVID-19 pandemic 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.^[13]

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 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" (九省通衢)^[14] and sometimes referred to as "the Chicago of China".^[15][16][17]

The exodus from Wuhan before the lockdown resulted in angry responses on the Chinese microblogging website Sina Weibo 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.^[24][101]

The World Health Organization 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.^[2] The WHO separately stated that the possibility of locking down an entire city in this way was "new to science".^[102]

The CSI 300 Index, an aggregate measure of the top 300 stocks in the Shanghai and Shenzhen 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.^[103]

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.^[104] 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 neighbourhood in Liberia during the 2014 ebola outbreak, which was lifted after ten days.^[104][105]

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.^[102] 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."^[106] Others, such as Anthony Fauci, 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."^[107]

However, as the global COVID-19 pandemic 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.^[108][109] 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"^[110]

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.^[111] 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 or air pollution.^[112]

• 2022 COVID-19 protests in China
• 2022 Ürümqi fire