China shuts down a city of 17 million people.

China's high-tech city Shenzhen, with more than 17 million, is the latest to contain a spike in COVID-19 cases as the government battles to prevent the worst virus outbreak in two years.

Shenzhen will lock down all townships villages and halt bus and subway services Monday through Sunday due to the recent COVID-19 outbreak, the state-run China Daily reported Sunday. Shenzhen, battling Omicron's jump since late February, will conduct three rounds of city-wide COVID-19 testing next week. In a statement, city officials instructed residents to work from home and only go out to shop for necessities.

Locally transmitted cases in China rose to more than 3,100 after topping 1,000 new points for two straight days, the National Health Commission said Sunday. This is the highest value in two years. In addition, all travelers departing from Shenzhen must show a negative result from a nucleic acid test accepted within the past 24 hours, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

The situation is that China is on the verge of its biggest COVID-19 crisis since Wuhan, the Post report said. The coronavirus first broke out in Wuhan in December 2019 before spreading to almost every part of the world, killing more than 6 million people so far. Significantly, China's cases increased as most countries opened after claims fell.

China's zero-case policy on COVID-19 has been increasingly strained in recent weeks as several cities, including Shanghai and Beijing, witnessed a wave of new cases. Sixteen provinces and four major cities - Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing - reported new coronavirus infections.

The Post report said that some local health officials attribute the jump to the Omicron variant, which is more portable but causes milder symptoms than the original COVID-19 virus. On Saturday, Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan urged regions with severe outbreaks to open up COVID-19 cases to the general public as soon as possible.

As part of its response to COVID-19, China has added antigen detection as an option to test for COVID-19 in public to promote early detection of COVID-19 cases. In addition, Shanghai has urged city dwellers not to leave the city. The Xinhua news agency reported that those who do must present a negative nucleic acid test result certificate 48 hours before departure.