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World

Parts of Beijing locked down as virus outbreak gathers fresh pace

Jing Xuan Teng - Agence France-Presse
Parts of Beijing locked down as virus outbreak gathers fresh pace
A security personnel wearing a protective suit stands guard at a residential area under lockdown near Yuquan East Market in Beijing on June 15, 2020. China locks down ten more Beijing neighbourhoods over virus cluster.
AFP / Noel Celis

BEIJING, China — All indoor sports and entertainment venues were shut down in China's capital on Monday as authorities raced to contain a coronavirus outbreak linked to a wholesale food market, with some neighbourhoods placed under complete lockdown.

Tens of thousands of people were also targeted in a massive test and trace programme, as the World Health Organization reported that more than 100 cases had been confirmed so far.

The outbreak came after China had largely brought the virus under control following its emergence in the central city of Wuhan late last year, highlighting the global risks associated with a second wave of infections.

"More than 100 cases have now been confirmed," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference, adding that the origin of the cluster linked to the Xinfadi market was still unclear.

"A cluster like this is a concern and it needs to be investigated and controlled — and that is exactly what the Chinese authorities are doing," WHO emergencies director Mike Ryan said.

Capital on lockdown

Indoor sports and entertainment venues across Beijing have been ordered to close, the municipal party committee said at a press conference Monday.

City official Xu Ying told reporters that all areas must "strengthen public space disinfection and temporarily close sports and recreation indoor facilities", as well as increasing temperature checks and forbidding non-residents from entering communities.

Students can revert to at-home schooling if they choose, the state Xinhua news agency reported.

Authorities have locked down 21 housing estates near Xinfadi in the south of the city and another market, Yuquandong, in the capital's northwestern Haidian district, where cases linked to the Xinfadi cluster have been detected.

Officials said they were in the process of testing more than 90,000 people living in the locked-down communities for the virus.

They said 200,000 people had visited the Xinfadi market since May 30, and they were trying to trace and test all of them, including going door-to-door.

More than 8,000 workers from the market have been tested and sent to centralised quarantine facilities.

AFP saw a car bearing the logo of China's Centre for Disease Control (CDC) arrive on Monday at the area surrounding the heavily-guarded Yuquandong market.

Multiple residential compounds on the same block had been sealed off, and residents were seen receiving parcels from delivery drivers through gates.

Officials said Monday that some close contacts of cases linked to the Yuquandong market would have to wear "smart thermometers" to monitor their temperatures, while others had been sent to quarantine facilities.

Test and trace

Nearly 200 testing points have been set up across Beijing.

AFP reporters saw dozens of people queuing up Monday morning to be tested at one local stadium, which was heavily guarded by staff in hazmat suits.

In the wake of the new outbreak, several cities have warned residents not to travel to Beijing, with some warning that they will quarantine new arrivals from the capital.

Companies and neighbourhood communities have messaged staff and residents to ask about their recent movements.

At least one building management company asked commercial tenants to declare if any of their staff had visited Xinfadi market.

The city government has also sacked two senior officials from Fengtai district, where Xinfadi is located, as well as the market's general manager.

Food safety

The outbreak has also turned the spotlight on the safety of Beijing's food chain.

Shelves normally stocked with fruit at the Xianhui supermarket in central Beijing were empty Monday, with staff saying that large amounts of produce from the Xinfadi market had been taken off the shelves.

A 19-year-old student surnamed Shao told AFP she started school in the capital a few days ago but was already planning to return to her hometown over fears of getting sick.

"I just came to Beijing for a few days. Now I'm going to go home again," she said.

Another Beijing resident, Dong Yiqin, told AFP she feels "kind of tired" following the latest outbreak.

"Maybe it's because the 'battle front' has been stretched too long," she said.

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CHINA

NOVEL CORONAVIRUS

As It Happens
LATEST UPDATE: October 1, 2023 - 2:35pm

Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.

October 1, 2023 - 2:35pm

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.

Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.

The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP

August 18, 2023 - 4:25pm

The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown. 

The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday. 

So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP

August 11, 2023 - 7:07pm

The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".

The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.

In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP

June 24, 2023 - 11:50am

The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.

In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.

Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP 

June 15, 2023 - 5:42pm

Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.

The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".

But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.

In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.

He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".

Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP

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