Beijing expands dwellings and tightens outgoing travel as coronavirus infections spread

Beijing reintroduces strict lockdown following new outbreak

The Beijing Municipal Health Commission reported on 27 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday – increasing the five-day total to 106 after an exacerbation in the city’s largest wholesale food market, Xinfadi.

The bustling, bustling market in Beijing’s southwestern Fengtai area covers an area of ​​277 acres and has more than 2,000 stalls, mostly selling fruit and vegetables, meat and seafood. According to officials, it provides about 70% of the city’s vegetables and 10% of pork.

The market has been closed since Saturday, but its size and the number of people working or visiting from Beijing and outside increased the risk of the outbreak.

Through door-to-door visits and calls, officials followed about 200,000 people who were released for the two weeks before they were closed. A city official said at a press conference on Monday that they were told to stay home for medical observation and were tested for coronavirus.

Housing lock

Two other Beijing food markets were closed due to confirmed cases linked to Xinfadi, which led to tight residential lockouts in the vicinity.

On Tuesday, the Xicheng district, adjacent to Fengtai, announced that the seven residential communities in the Tiantao Honglian market will lock up after the discovery of a coronavirus case on Sunday.

This follows similar crashes in residential compounds near Xinfadi and in the Yuquandong market in the Haidian region. In total, 29 residential areas were locked across the city.

Housing locking measures are similar to those applied in the city of Wuhan, the original epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.

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Wang Du, who lives in one of the locked communities near the Yuquandong market, said residents were unable to leave the compound to buy food and had to order or buy food from a truck that came to the compound once a day with potatoes. fresh vegetables and eggs.

China's new coronavirus outbreak sees Beijing adopting wartime measures as capital races to cover spread

He said that all residents in his community performed nucleic acid tests for the coronavirus yesterday.

“To be honest, I’m not worried too much,” he said. “We have a lot of experience in containment measures and we can react very quickly (to the new outbreak).”

Authorities said that as of Tuesday morning, 276 agricultural product markets and 33,173 restaurants were disinfected across the city.

Outgoing travel is restricted

The epidemic also spread beyond Beijing, and the nearby Liaoning and Hubei provinces reported a total of eight coronavirus cases linked to capital clusters.

On Tuesday, the province of Sichuan, southwest of the country, also reported a confirmed case – a woman who returned from Beijing on 9 June. She got infected while visiting her husband working in the Xinfadi market.

Unlike Wuhan, the epicenter of China’s original outbreak, Beijing has not completely cut off travel. However, according to the state taxi, outbound taxi and car salutation services and some long-distance bus routes between Beijing and neighboring provinces have been suspended. Beijing Daily.

Authorized officials said on Monday that municipal authorities have also banned high-risk groups from leaving the city, such as close contacts of confirmed cases.

On Tuesday, Shanghai explained Passengers in areas with moderate to high risk of coronavirus will need to be quarantined for 14 days. As of Monday, Beijing had a neighborhood called high-risk and 22 medium-risk.

CNN’s Steven Jiang and Shawn Deng contributed to the reporting.

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