As Chinese cities face new Covid-19 lockdowns, have lessons of 2020 been learned?

BEIJING, Jan 19 (SCMP): Nearly a year after the lockdown in the Chinese city of Wuhan to contain the initial coronavirus outbreak, millions in China are again under stay-at-home orders as the country faces its highest number of new cases in months, this time in several provinces including Hebei in the north, neighbouring Beijing.

Residents in the affected areas are complaining online about losing access to medical services, and being stranded as bus and train services were suspended. The authorities appeared not to have learned from mistakes made when 9 million people in Wuhan were shut in during the early days of the epidemic, according to some reports.