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At 36, Beijing see highest daily jump in Covid-19 cases since outbreak began
Beijing had reported six new domestic cases for Friday, and one for Thursday, leading local authorities to swing back into anti-epidemic mode on a “wartime” footing.
China on Sunday reported 57 new Covid-19 cases including 36 domestically transmitted ones in Beijing, the sharpest spike in over two months. The spike was recorded in the last 24 hours, between Friday and Saturday.
The 36 new cases are the highest 24-hour jump for the capital since January when the health authorities started to release coronavirus data.
Beijing had reported six new domestic cases for Friday, and one for Thursday, leading local authorities to swing back into anti-epidemic mode on a “wartime” footing.
The capital, a city of around 21 million residents, had lowered its anti-outbreak emergency mode to the lowest level earlier this month.
Two more domestic cases were reported from northeast China’s Liaoning province, the National Health Commission (NHC) said in its daily briefing on Sunday.
Nineteen of 57 cases were imported cases, the NHC said with 17 of them reported in the southern province of Guangdong.
The virus first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late last year before spreading to the rest of the country, and then rapidly across the world.
Beijing has now reported 43 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 in about three days, triggering alarm bells about the second wave of the epidemic just when the city was getting back to full normalisation, which included the reopening of schools after being shut for months.
Sporting activities have been suspended and tourist spots, which had only lately opened up fully, were shut down as well over the weekend.
Thousands of workers and residents around the Xinfadi market in Beijing’s Fengtai district were lining up for nucleic acid tests on Sunday.
Besides shuttering the market, where coronavirus traces were discovered in imported salmon, authorities have launched closed-off management over 11 residential compounds in the vicinity of the Xinfadi market.
The city has suspended a major wholesale food and vegetable market and strengthened control measures to contain the spread of the epidemic.
The total number of Covid-19 cases in mainland China now stands at 83,132 while the death toll has remained unchanged at 4,634 for weeks.
By Saturday, the Chinese mainland had reported a total of 1,827 imported cases. Of the cases, 1,744 had been discharged from hospitals after recovery, and 83 remained hospitalised, with no one in severe condition. No deaths from the imported cases had been reported, official news agency, Xinhua reported.
