China lockdown may have blocked 700,000 Covid-19 cases, say researchers

Residents go about their daily life amongst barriers in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province Tuesday, March 31, 2020. According to researchers the timel;y Wuhan shutdown delayed the arrival of the virus in other cities. - AP

WASHINGTON (AFP): China's decision to lock down the city of Wuhan, ground zero for the global Covid-19 pandemic, may have prevented more than 700,000 new cases by delaying the spread of the virus, researchers said on Tuesday (March 31).

Drastic Chinese control measures in the first 50 days of the epidemic bought other cities across the country valuable time to prepare and install their own restrictions, according to the paper by researchers in China, the United States and the UK, published in the journal Science.