Beijing delays annual marathon, raises curbs

BEIJING: China on Monday indefinitely postponed the annual Beijing marathon scheduled to be held later this month as it fights a country-wide surge in Covid-19 cases including in the capital. Beijing authorities also restricted entry to the city on Monday, and sent out directives asking citizens not to leave unless necessary.

“The epidemic situation is severe and complex, and the epidemic risk and prevention pressure faced by the capital continue to increase,” a Beijing official said on Monday.

More than 30,000 people were expected to take part in the event on October 31. A marathon in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the first Covid-19 cases were detected in 2019-end, was cancelled on Sunday.

The China-Mongolia border city of Ejin Banner, a region hit hard in the latest coronavirus flare-up, told all residents and tourists on Monday that they must stay indoors to prevent the spread of the outbreak.

The Chinese mainland on Sunday reported 35 new locally transmitted Covid-19 cases, the national health commission said in its daily report on Monday, taking the total number of cases over 160 in the new outbreak, which has now spread to 11 provinces.

All of them are said to be the highly transmissible Delta variant. The latest outbreak, said to have been triggered by tour groups travelling out of the northern autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, comes as the country’s top health official warned of more cases.

Authorities have suspended inter-provincial tour groups in five areas where cases have been detected, including Beijing.