A district in the southern Chinese economic hub of Guangzhou entered a partial lockdown on Saturday, with public transport grinding to a halt on official orders after several new coronavirus infections cropped up.

Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong province, reported six new cases on Friday, while neighboring Foshan city had two, the provincial Health Commission said. The two cities also confirmed infections in three previously asymptomatic cases, two in Guangzhou and one in Foshan.

Nansha district in Guangzhou ceased all public transport from 2 p.m. on Saturday in light of the rise in infections, until further notice, the Guangzhou Disease Control and Prevention Department said. The lockdown included canceling all outbound trips of high-speed trains and ferries, which connect the coastal city to the rest of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area.

Authorities placed residents of 10 apartment buildings in Nansha under total lockdown, meaning they were not allowed to leave their homes. A partial ban was imposed on another 20 buildings, where people would be allowed to enter and move freely within the cordoned-off area, but were forbidden from leaving.

Separately, a Chinese drugmaker said authorities had approved emergency use of its vaccines in children as young as 3 years old.

Sinovac Biotech chief executive Yin Weidong told state broadcaster China Central Television on Friday that they had finished the first and second phases of vaccine clinical trials on those aged 3 to 17. The results from hundreds of cases showed that the vaccines were as safe as those applied to adults, and the antibody levels exhibited after vaccination were also similar, Yin said.

When Sinovac would offer its COVID-19 vaccine to minors depended on the National Health Commission, he added.

Dr. Leung Chi-chiu, a respiratory medicine specialist, told Apple Daily that the results showed children’s immune response to the vaccine did not differ much from older age groups. Rather, more attention needed to be paid to the safety of the vaccines being administered to 3-year-olds as several hundred samples were not enough to rule out certain rare side effects, he added.

Leung said that there was no urgency as yet for children to get inoculated, especially in the absence of data on widespread vaccination of their age groups which could be referenced. He advised 12 to 18-year-olds to be immunized first, although children should at some point also get the jabs in order to reach herd immunity in the population.

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