China’s major city of Chengdu has extended its Covid lockdown for a second time, with no end in sight, as authorities struggle to stamp out an outbreak that continues despite strict restrictions that have disrupted business and daily life.   

  Home to 21 million people and the capital of the southwestern Sichuan province, Chengdu went into lockdown on September 1, becoming the largest Chinese metropolis brought to a standstill by Shanghai’s painful two-month lockdown in the spring.  The city is also a major manufacturing hub for Apple.   

  On Sunday, when citywide testing was due to end, Chengdu extended the lockdown for most of the city and ordered new rounds of mass testing until Wednesday.   

  Late on Wednesday night, authorities announced that lockdown measures would be extended again in most regions, covering 16 million people.  Mass testing will continue daily, and the city aims to eliminate community infections within a week.   

  Authorities did not reveal when the lockdown would end, saying only that the restrictions would be “dynamically adjusted based on the evolution of the epidemic and the need for (Covid) prevention and control.”   

  Chengdu reported 116 infections on Wednesday, bringing the total number of cases to nearly 1,800 in the past month – a major outbreak by the standards of China’s zero-covid strategy.   

  “Three days, three days and three more days, when can the lockdown end?”  A Chengdu resident wrote on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.   

  Some regions have banned online delivery of what they described as “non-daily necessities”, including tea, coffee, hotpots and barbecues.  Cafes, bakeries and barbecues were also ordered to close, according to government announcements.   

  Across China, local authorities are under immense pressure to stamp out infections at any cost in the final countdown to a Communist Party meeting in October, when leader Xi Jinping is expected to secure a third term in power.   

  More than 70 cities have gone into full or partial lockdown for Covid since late August, affecting more than 300 million people, according to CNN’s count.   

  As of Wednesday, China has 1,604 high-risk areas, 1,730 medium-risk areas and 309 low-risk areas, according to the country’s National Health Commission.  The size of a hazard area can vary from a shop to an entire housing complex.  People in high-risk areas are strictly prohibited from leaving their homes, and those in medium-risk areas are confined to their compounds.   

  In some cities, authorities appear unprepared for the lockdown, causing severe food shortages.   

  Guiyang, the capital of southwestern Guizhou province, put its main districts under a four-day lockdown on Monday after reporting 132 cases.  By Wednesday, many Guiyang residents had taken to social media to plead for help with food shortages.   

  The situation appeared particularly dire in Huaguoyuan, a mega-apartment complex home to about 400,000 residents, according to state media.  Posts circulating on social media show footage of residents begging for food, with some claiming to have been starving for three days.   

  The local government acknowledged the issue and apologized for the lack of supplies in a statement on Wednesday.  “Affected by the epidemic, our residents… have faced difficulties in procuring daily necessities.  We are doing our best to solve the problem,” the Nanming regional government said.   

  Huaguoyuan resident Yang Rui said she received supplies from the government on Thursday morning, but many others have yet to receive them.  “Supplies and personnel are limited, it will take some time,” he said.   

  Guiyang is home to Apple’s Chinese data center.  Guizhou-Cloud Big Data, which built the data center with Apple, said in a letter to staff posted on the company’s official WeChat account: “To ensure that the provincial Covid prevention system works smoothly, many of us we stay here in our place.  (Staff) have not gone home once for a whole week, nor had a full week of sleep.”   

  CNN has reached out to Apple for comment on the ongoing lockdowns in Chengdu and Guiyang.   

  In Shanghai, guests at the Disney Hotel were hit by a two-day lockdown on Wednesday after authorities found that a former hotel guest had been in close contact with a Covid patient.   

  And in Beijing, authorities are scrambling to contain an outbreak centered on university campuses.  The city reported 14 local infections for Tuesday and 10 infections on Wednesday.   

  Nationally, China reported 1,439 new infections on Wednesday, according to the National Health Commission.