Food market source of new outbreak
Authorities in Beijing have begun an operation to contain a potential second wave of coronavirus after 64 new cases were detected, the most in nine weeks.
More than 40 of the cases were linked to a food market in the south of the Chinese capital, in a reminder of the pandemic’s origins in a wildlife market in the city of Wuhan. Hygiene officials have started a city-wide inspection of food markets, shops and warehouses, after the virus was found on chopping boards used to cut up imported salmon.
Authorities have started a contact-tracing operation, ordering everyone who works at the Xinfadi market to be tested, as well as all those who have visited it and people who live nearby. Neighbourhood organisations and companies have been asking staff and residents about their movements.
After a handful of cases connected to the market emerged, 27 infections were confirmed among workers there and nine among customers on Saturday. Seven more cases were confirmed in the early hours of Sunday.
Two other cases were found in Liaoning province, among close contacts of infected people in Beijing, suggesting that the cluster had spread beyond the capital.
The World Health Organisation said: ‘‘All cases are in isolation and under care as needed and contact tracing is under way. Genetic sequencing of samples is also under way and rapid sharing of these results is important to understand the origin of the cluster and links between cases. The WHO has offered support and technical assistance, as well as requested further information about the cluster and the investigations under way.’’
The Xinfadi market supplies much of the fruit, vegetables and seafood to Beijing’s 20 million people. The authorities have isolated 11 residential compounds nearby and quarantined more than 100 people. The 19 other cases confirmed Sunday were in travellers from overseas, including 17 on a China Southern airlines flight from Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, to Guangzhou. The route has been closed for four weeks as a precaution.
The coronavirus was first detected in Wuhan last year, and in February the city and much of the surrounding province were locked down, stifling the spread of the virus in two-and-a-half months. Having quelled the pandemic more efficiently than governments in Europe and North America, China’s communist authorities will be anxious to prevent a second wave.
Hundreds of police and security officers were blocking off the market on Sunday, according to local reports. Ladders were propped up against the fences of residential compounds that had been ordered to lock down, and neighbours were passing over supplies to people within.
In other markets in the city, shoppers and vendors expressed anxiety. ‘‘People are scared,’’ said a tomato seller named Sun. ‘‘The meat sellers have had to close. This disease is really scary.’’
Song Weiming, a shopper, said: ‘‘As long as you wear a face mask, it should be fine. Anyway, I have to buy food.’’ – The Times, London