Chinese authorities confined about half a million people on Sunday near Beijing, the capital, hit since mid-June by an outbreak of COVID-19 that the authorities describe as “serious and complex”.
The Asian country had practically contained the epidemic but the appearance of some 300 new cases in the city in the span of just over two weeks, fears of a second wave of infections.
The mayor’s office has launched a major diagnostic campaign, has closed schools and has asked the people of Beijing not to leave the capital and confined several thousand people in residential areas considered at risk.
Local authorities announced Sunday the confinement of the canton of Anxin, located 60 kilometers south of Beijing in Hebei province (north). Eleven cases related to the Pekingese outbreak have been reported, according to the semi-official newspaper Global Times.
Hereinafter, Only one person per household can go out once a day to buy food and medicine.
The Chinese Ministry of Health reported on Sunday 14 new cases in Beijing in the last 24 hours, with a total of 311 since the start of this new focus, detected in the wholesale market of Xinfadi, in the south of the city, which supplies fresh products mainly to supermarkets and restaurants.
About a third of the new cases reported so far are related to the beef and lamb section of the market, city officials said Sunday in a press conference.
“The epidemic situation in the capital is serious and complex”Xu Hejian, a city spokesman, stressed.
The diagnostic tests mainly affect those who frequented the market, restaurant employees, delivery people and residents of residential areas considered at risk.
(Information from AFP)
Newsletter Everything about the coronavirus
COVID-19 has put everyone on alert. Subscribe to our newsletter Everything about the coronavirus, where you will find the most relevant daily data from the country and the world on the progress of the virus and the fight against its spread.
– .
