Beijing reopens restaurants as new COVID-19 cases drop

Diners returned to restaurants in most of Beijing for the first time in more than a month on Monday as authorities further eased pandemic-related restrictions after largely eradicating a small COVID-19 outbreak in the capital under China’s strict zero-COVID approach.

Museums, cinemas and gyms were allowed to operate at up to 75 per cent of capacity and delivery drivers could once again bring packages to a customer’s door, rather than leave them to be picked up at the entrances to apartment compounds.

The return to near-normal applied everywhere in Beijing except for one district and part of another, where the outbreak lingered. Schools, which partially reopened earlier, will fully do so on June 13, followed by kindergartens on June 20.

Authorities conducted multiple rounds of mass testing and locked down buildings and complexes when infections were discovered to stamp out an outbreak that infected about 1,800 people in a city of 22 million. The number of new cases dropped to six on Sunday.

In Shanghai, a population of 25 million people endured a lockdown that kept most confined to their neighbourhoods for two months. The city reopened last week, but restaurants remain closed except for delivery and takeout. In both Beijing and Shanghai, anyone entering the subway or an office building, shopping mall or another public places must show a negative test result within the past 72 hours.

People lined up at testing stations that have been set up around the cities to meet the requirement. All ferries in Shanghai, which is bisected by the Huangpu river, resumed normal operation on Monday.