Omicron-hit Chinese province bans travel in rare measure against COVID

A northeastern Chinese province on Monday imposed a rare travel ban on its population as the region's Omicron outbreak helped drive China's tally of new local COVID-19 cases so far this year higher than any recorded in 2021. Mainland China reported 1,337 new domestically transmitted COVID infections with confirmed symptoms on March 13, the National Health Commission (NHC) said on Monday. That brought the registered total this year to more than 9,000, compared with 8,378 in 2021, according to Reuters calculations.