The woman was denied entry to the Xi’an Gaoxin Hospital for several hours for lacking a negative Covid-19 test results and was forced to wait until she started to bleed

Other urban hubs where clusters have been detected face restrictions while Hong Kong authorities recall a giant cruise ship back to port

One of the world's biggest memory chip suppliers said stringent restrictions may be increasingly difficult to mitigate and had resulted in thinner staffing levels

Xi'an reported 151 domestically transmitted infections with confirmed symptoms for Tuesday, bringing total number of local cases to 1,000 during December 9-28

Xian's case load - 150 local symptomatic cases on Sunday versus 155 a day earlier - remains tiny compared with many clusters overseas, but it has imposed tough curbs

About 13 million people were ordered to stay home in the city of Xi'an, where a strict lockdown and travel controls were imposed on Wednesday to fight a growing Covid-19 outbreak