Beijing canceled at least 1,255 incoming and outgoing flights on Wednesday.
Beijing, China:
Beijing airports have canceled more than 1,200 flights and schools in the Chinese capital were closed again on Wednesday as authorities rushed to contain a new coronavirus outbreak linked to a wholesale food market.
The city reported 31 new cases on Wednesday while authorities urged residents not to leave Beijing as concerns over a second wave of infections in China that had largely brought its epidemic under control.
Tens of thousands of people linked to the new Beijing virus cluster – which is said to have started on the vast wholesale food market in Xinfadi – are being tested, and nearly 30 residential complexes in the city are currently closed.
At least 1,255 scheduled flights were canceled on Wednesday morning, the People’s Daily reported, nearly 70 percent of all trips to and from major Beijing airports.
The epidemic had already forced authorities to announce a travel ban for residents of “medium to high risk” areas of the city, while forcing other residents to take nucleic acid tests in order to leave Beijing.
Meanwhile, several provinces were quarantining travelers from Beijing, where all schools – most of which had reopened – were ordered to close again and resume online courses.
“The epidemic in the capital is extremely serious,” Beijing city spokesman Xu Hejian warned on Tuesday.
Mass testing in progress
Authorities closed 11 markets and disinfected thousands of food and beverage companies in Beijing after the outbreak was detected.
The city has now reported 137 infections in the past six days, with six new asymptomatic cases and three suspected cases on Wednesday, according to the municipal health commission.
On Wednesday, two other domestic cases, one in neighboring Hebei province and another in Zhejiang, were reported by national authorities, while 11 cases were imported.
Authorities have so far banned group sports, ordered people to wear masks in crowded confined spaces, and suspended interprovincial group visits in response to the epidemic.
Officials said that since May 30, more than 200,000 people have visited the Xinfadi market, which supplies more than 70 percent of Beijing’s produce.
Over 8,000 workers have been tested and quarantined there.
Until the new epidemic, most recent cases in China were nationals returning from abroad while COVID-19 was spreading around the world, and the government had almost declared its victory over the disease.
The China Center for Disease Control and Prevention said on Monday that the type of virus found during the Beijing epidemic was a “major epidemic strain” in Europe.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
