At 44, Beijing sees sharpest rise in Covid-19 cases

Majority of the cases have been linked to the sprawling Xinfadi wholesale market – the biggest in Beijing – for vegetables, meat and seafood in the southwest of the city in the Fengtai district: the infected are either traders or buyers who visited the market.

China on Sunday reported 44 new Covid-19 cases in Beijing, the sharpest rise in the capital since the outbreak began last year, triggering fears of the second wave in a country that had efficiently reduced infection numbers even as the pandemic rages globally.

The capital, a city of around 21 million residents, had lowered its emergency level to the lowest level earlier this month. (REUTERS)

Majority of the cases have been linked to the sprawling Xinfadi wholesale market – the biggest in Beijing – for vegetables, meat and seafood in the southwest of the city in the Fengtai district: the infected are either traders or buyers who visited the market.

Beijing had reported six new domestically transmitted 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 emergency level to the lowest level earlier this month.

The sudden spurt in cases in the city, home to the political elite of the Communist Party of China (CPC), is a reminder that no fresh cases even for 55 days -- as was the case in Beijing -- doesn’t mean that the virus threat has been eradicated.

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 recorded on Sunday were imported cases, the NHC said with 17 of them reported in the southern province of Guangdong – they were all on a flight from Dhaka in Bangladesh to Guangzhou, the capital of the province.

In Beijing, the city government said they were out to control the new cluster infection on “war footing”.

“Beijing has entered a critical period,” Xu Hejian, a Beijing government spokesperson said at a briefing Sunday.

The city has ordered testing of anyone linked to the Xinfadi market, after the district containing the market put itself on a “wartime” footing.

Beijing shuttered tourist spots and suspended sports events scheduled for the week amid the new infections.

Many schools, which had reopened in a staggered fashion in the last couple of weeks are expected to be shut down again.

Thousands of workers and residents around the Xinfadi market were lining up for nucleic acid tests on Sunday – the government has directed that anyone who had visited the market May 30 onwards should head to the nearest of the 98 testing clinics to get the testing done.

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.

Beijing health authority spokesperson Gao Xiaojun has said anyone in the city with a fever will be given nucleic-acid and serology tests for the coronavirus, a blood test and a CT scan.

Medical facilities are not allowed to turn away patients with fever symptoms, Gao said.

At least 10 cities, including Harbin and Dalian in the northeast of China, have urged residents not to travel to Beijing and to report to authorities if they have done so recently.

More than 1,500 tonnes of seafood, 18,000 tonnes of vegetables and 20,000 tonnes of fruit are traded at the market daily, according to the state-controlled Beijing News.

The total number of Covid-19 cases in mainland China now stands at 83,140 while the death toll has remained unchanged at 4634 for weeks.