Chinese authorities on Sunday confined nearly half a million people on the outskirts of Beijing, an area hit since mid-June by a coronavirus outbreak that authorities describe as “serious and complex.”
The Asian country, which had practically contained the epidemic, registered the appearance of about 300 new cases in the capital China in just over two weeks, fueling fears of an impending second wave of infections.
The regional government then launched an immense diagnostic campaign, closed schools and asked the people of Beijing not to leave the city, thus confining several thousand people in residential areas considered at risk.
Today, local authorities announced total confinement of Anxin canton, located 60 kilometers south of Beijing, in Hebei province (north), where 11 cases related to the outbreak in Beijing were registered, according to the semi-official Global Times newspaper.
The measure implies, among other things, that Only one person per household may go out once a day to buy food and medicine.
Meanwhile, the Chinese Ministry of Health reported 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 in Xinfadi, in the south of the city, which supplies fresh products mainly to supermarkets and restaurants.
Near a third of the new cases reported so far are related to the section of the beef and lamb market, Municipal authorities said at a press conference, according to the ANSA agency.
“The epidemic situation in the capital is serious and complex,” said Xu Hejian, a city spokesman. The diagnostic tests mainly affect those who frequented the market, restaurant employees, delivery people and residents of residential areas considered at risk.
Total, 8.3 million samples were taken and 7.7 million have been analyzed, the municipality announced Sunday.
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