China is locking now ten more neighbourhoods in Beijing to try and contain the spread of a new coronavirus outbreak linked to a food market, authorities announced Monday.
City official Li Junjie said at a press conference that fresh cases had been found in a second wholesale market in northwestern Haidian district, and as a result, the market and nearby schools would be closed, and people living in ten communities around it placed under lockdown.
A Beijing district official the district was in “wartime emergency mode” following a spike in novel coronavirus cases centered around the major wholesale market there.
Chu Junwei, an official of Beijing’s Fengtai district, said at a briefing that throat swabs from 45 people, out of 517 tested at the district’s Xinfadi market, had tested positive for the new coronavirus.
Beijing will suspend sports events and inter-provincial tourism, effective immediately, a city spokesman said at the same briefing.
