Beijing races to control fresh outbreak of Covid
Curbs expanded in Chinese capital as cases in 5 days top 100
BEIJING: Beijing on Tuesday reported 27 more locally transmitted Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the caseload to 106 in five days in the sharpest rise for the Chinese capital, prompting lockdown of dozens of communities, sealing of food markets and large-scale testing.
The city authorities have ordered all schools to shut, in an escalation of containment measures as it struggles to halt the new coronavirus outbreak.
Beijing has raised its emergency response to level two and said that people will have to be tested for the virus before being allowed to leave the city.
The WHO has described Beijing’s new cluster infection a cause of concern, calling for a thorough and systematic investigation into the fresh outbreak after reporting no cases for nearly two months.
China reported 40 new confirmed cases on the mainland on Monday, of which 32 were locally transmitted and eight imported.
Of the local cases, 27 were reported in Beijing, four in Hebei province, and one in Sichuan province.
In Beijing, a city of more than 21 million, most of the new cases confirmed from June 11 have been linked to the now-closed Xinfadi market in Fengtai district. Epidemiological investigations are ongoing into the cases which are seemingly not connected to the market.
According to Xinhua news agency, more than 8,000 dealers and workers at the Xinfadi market have received nucleic acid tests and about 200,000 people who had visited the market since May 30 were being contacted.