Beijing: A rare display of public opposition to anti-COVID measures broke out between protesters and police in southern China after the region's lockdown was extended due to a surge in infections, videos posted online showed.

Videos that have been circulating on social media since Monday night and confirmed by AFP show hundreds of people taking to the streets in the industrial metropolis of Guangzhou, some breaking cordons to stop those who Were in lockdown from leaving their homes.

Some people fought off officers wearing hazmat suits. Protesters chanted "no more tests" and some threw objects at police.

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Another video showed a man attempting to swim across a waterway that separates the affected Haizhou district from the nearby region. People around speculate that the man was trying to escape the lockdown.

Most of Guangzhou's COVID-19 cases have originated from the neighborhood, which has more than 1.8 million residents.
In late October, officials there announced the first immediate lockdown, which was directed at several residential areas.
And on Monday, the lockdown order for nearly two-thirds of the districts across the state was extended through Wednesday night.

Last week, nine districts were subjected to mandatory mass testing after the number of daily cases crossed 1,000.
Most of the nearly 2,300 cases - which were reported on Tuesday - were asymptomatic - in the megacity of more than 18 million people.

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Only one other major economy, China, has adopted a zero-covid strategy to eliminate virus clusters as they appear, but the quick and severe lockdown has severely hurt the country's economy.
As per the policy, a single positive case in their housing complex could lead to a lockdown of thousands of residents.

Public confidence in the strategy has been eroded by a wave of scandals related to the lockdown, where residents have complained of poor conditions, food shortages and sluggish emergency medical care.

In September, dozens of people flooded the streets of Shenzhen, a major tech hub in the south, after authorities imposed a sudden lockdown due to few COVID cases.

Shanghai, the world's third most populous city with more than 25 million residents, experienced a torturous two-month lockdown earlier this year, resulting in severe food shortages, lack of access to medical care and sporadic protests Happened.

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Incoming traveler quarantine periods will be shortened, and the need to identify and isolate "secondary close contacts"—those who may have come into contact with infected people—will no longer be required. The government announced these measures on Friday.