shanghai the capital of chinas farwestern xinjiang region curtailed most flights into the city on friday and has shut down subway and public bus services after several coronavirus infections were detected government authorities and statecontrolled media saidso far at least five cases linked to urumqi have been discovered including a man who was confirmed positive after he travelled from the city to the eastern province of zhejiang state media saidthe infections were detected beginning on wednesday and news of the cases prompted state media outlets in urumqi to issue assurances on friday that supermarkets had ample stocks of food an apparent attempt to discourage panicbuyingmore on covid19coronavirus pandemic complete coverageits time to mask up and stay safe join tois maskindia campaignmhas guidelines for home isolationtrust the newspaper for your daily verified newsthe new cases illustrate the continuing difficulty china faces in stamping out the contagion which emerged in the central chinese city of wuhan late last year before spreading throughout the country and globallystrict lockdowns across the country and widespread covid19 testing largely brought the outbreak under control within chinese bordersbut a new cluster emerged in beijing in june infecting more than 330 people before also being containedaviation authorities announced that 89 percent of flights servicing urumqi had been cancelled and the metro system said the citys single line had been shut down from late thursdayneither of the brief announcements indicated when normal service might be resumedpublic bus services also were curtailed and the vehicles subjected to thorough disinfection while bus employees would be required to take covid19 tests bus authorities announcedchina has reported a total of more than 83000 infections and 4634 deathsaround half of xinjiangs population of more than 21 million is composed of ethnic uighurs and other turkic muslims many of whom complain of decades of political and religious oppression by chinas ruling communist party which the government denies