beijing china ended its final week of 2021 with its biggest tally of local coronavirus cases for any sevenday period since subduing the countrys first epidemic nearly two years ago despite an arsenal of some of the worlds toughest covid measures the national health commission reported on saturday 175 new infections with confirmed symptoms for december 31 bringing the total number of local cases in mainland china in the past week to 1151 the surge has been driven mostly by an outbreak in xian a city of 13 million the deepening outbreak in xian will likely firm authorities resolve to curb transmissions quickly as and when cases emerge the city under lockdown for 10 days as of saturday has reported 1451 local symptomatic cases since december 9 the highest tally for any chinese city in 2021 while chinas case count is tiny compared to outbreaks in other countries forestalling major flareups in 2022 will be important beijing will be hosting the winter olympics in february and the communist party will hold a onceeveryfiveyears congress expected in the fall