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China: Beijing on alert as mass Covid-19 tests ordered for residents
The capital has reported 39 Covid-19 infections since January 15, a mix of Delta and Omicron variants, with the highest number diagnosed in the Fengtai district.
Beijing’s local government on Sunday ordered mass tests for all the residents of a district in the capital as the number of cases in the city continued to rise less than two weeks ahead of the Winter Olympic Games, scheduled to begin on February 4.
The capital has reported 39 Covid-19 infections since January 15, a mix of Delta and Omicron variants, with the highest number diagnosed in the Fengtai district, which has shut down wholesale markets, sealed apartment blocks and suspended gathering activities.
Nucleic acid tests for all residents of Fengtai, one of the 16 Beijing districts, began on Sunday, health authorities said.
Nine locally transmitted cases were found in Beijing for Saturday (January 22) the national health commission (NHC) said on Sunday, of which six were in the Fengtai district.
Residents of areas deemed high-risk have been asked not to leave Beijing and health authorities have urged people to proactively conduct nucleic acid tests if they find themselves with Covid-19-like symptoms within 14 days of receiving any deliveries from overseas.
State-run Global Times reported that three spilled-over cases, related to the chain of transmissions in Beijing, were reported in Jinan and Liaocheng, east China’s Shandong province and one in Datong city of north China’s Shanxi province.
“All the cases were either cold storage workers in Beijing or close contacts of infected workers,” the report said.
“The cold chain related transmission was caused by the Delta virus, affecting Chaoyang, Fengtai and Fangshan districts. The Omicron-related transmission chain was tracked to international mails, which concentrated in Haidian district,” it added.
Meanwhile, as of Friday, over 200 million senior citizens in China have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the NHC has said.
He Qinghua, a senior NHC official said that as of Friday, over 2.96 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses had been administered on the Chinese mainland.
More than 1.22 billion people have been fully vaccinated, with 209 million of that number being aged 60 or above, the official was quoted by Xinhua as saying.
The Chinese mainland recorded 19 locally transmitted Covid-19 infections on Saturday, the NHC said on Sunday.
Besides the nine new local infections in Beijing, five were reported from neighbouring Tianjin, three in Guangdong and one each in Henan and Yunnan provinces respectively.
As of Saturday, the Chinese mainland had reported 105,603 confirmed cases, including both local ones and those arriving from outside the mainland. A total of 4,636 patients had died as a result of the virus on the Chinese mainland since the pandemic first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.