The Beijing Municipal health Commission announced on Tuesday seven new cases of confirmed New Year’s Eve outbreaks, and authorities announced a moratorium on the approval of large-scale business performances during the New Year’s Day and Chinese New Year. Currently, Beijing’s Shunyi District is in a “state of war” and other districts are in a “state of emergency”, and foreigners entering Beijing are required to check their “health codes”.
As the New Year approaches and the new epidemic resumes in China, many areas in Beijing are locking down communities and requiring residents to undergo nucleic acid testing. The Beijing Municipal Health and Wellness Commission reported on December 29 that seven new cases were confirmed the day before, all of whom live in Shunyi District, Beijing. Four are employees of a trade service company, one is a trade service company housekeeper, one is a net car driver, and one is engaged in net car and individual decoration.
After Beijing Shunyi District entered a “state of war”, other districts also entered a “state of emergency”. The official announcement was made this week that Beijing will suspend the approval of two large performances during the New Year’s Day and Spring Festival. The city’s parks and scenic spots, performance venues and theaters will be managed in strict limits, with time-sharing and staggered peak hours.
The atmosphere of the recent epidemic in Beijing is tense again
Beijing resident Mr. Sun said in an interview with Radio Free Asia on Tuesday (29) that the epidemic has recently returned to a tense atmosphere, with the need to scan health codes to enter and leave stores: “When you go to some public places, such as supermarkets and restaurants, you will be asked to show your health code, to scan the code, but in the previous period, this requirement was not so strict, or basically not checked. The two days together there should be a dozen cases (confirmed cases). There may be some more sporadic cases increasing in succession, and the authorities will definitely keep a tight watch.”
At the entrance to a Beijing subway station, authorities tightened restrictions on passenger flow. A video provided by a Beijing netizen shows many people gathered outside the subway station, waiting to enter the station in groups. Local resident Guo Li told the station, “The subway flow restrictions and traffic restrictions are to prevent the gathering of people coming and going, to control the flow and reduce unnecessary human contact.”
According to the official media Xinhua News Agency, over the past few days, there have been multiple sporadic cases in Beijing, and the situation of prevention and control of the epidemic is serious. At present, relevant departments have quickly carried out virus tracing work, and all districts, departments and units in Beijing have entered emergency status, with large-scale nucleic acid sampling of key areas and key populations in Shunyi District, Chaoyang District and Xicheng District.
Beijing’s external traffic is restricted
Beijing resident Li Xia told the station, “It’s very serious in Tongzhou and Shunyi now, they’re all closed over there, the city is closed. If you go up to Yanjiao in Hebei, you have to get off the bus for a full check. Scan the two-dimensional code to check your health code. Now the trains from Dalian to Beijing are stopped.”
Li Xia, who lives in Daxing District, said that authorities in her location are also nervous: “In the last three days, everyone is checked for going out permits. People are afraid that the epidemic is so serious that they can’t buy vegetables. These last three or four days, the price of vegetables has also gone up, and people are buying a lot, afraid that the epidemic is so serious that they are not allowed to go out and buy vegetables.”
The authorities took the opportunity to stop all visitors from entering Beijing
In addition, checkpoints have been set up around Beijing and local government officials have been notified that visitors are strictly forbidden to enter Beijing and that local officials will be held accountable if foreign visitors are found in Beijing.
So far, the government of Shunyi District in Beijing has tracked and identified 891 close contacts of confirmed cases and asymptomatic infected persons, and 618 secondary close contacts, all of whom have implemented control measures. As of the afternoon of the 28th, the Shunyi District completed nucleic acid testing of more than 1.2 million people, has issued the results of more than 900,000 people, the test results are negative.
Wang Changle, a Beijing businessman who is out of town and lives in Shunyi, told the station, “I have a blockade in a neighborhood near my home in Beijing that is quite serious. This virus is much more powerful in its ability to multiply and survive than SARS pneumonia.”
Jiang Rongmeng, director of the office of China’s National Center for Quality Control of Infectious Diseases and vice president of Beijing Ditan Hospital, said there is a risk of “transmission of the virus to people” because the source of infection has not been fully traced in many places in China.
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