Chinese capital reported 36 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, bringing the total to 79 since a locally transmitted infection was reported on June 12 for the first time in almost two months, according to the National Health Commission .
The cases are linked to the Xinfadi market in the southwest of the city, which supplies most of the capital's fresh fruit and vegetables. The market, which also sells meat and seafood, has been closed since Saturday.
The new cluster sent shockwaves across China, Beijing municipal government spokesman Xu Hejian described it as "an extraordinary time" at a press conference on Sunday.
Chinese state media has repeatedly praised China's effective measures to contain the virus as the number of infections and deaths abroad has increased, contrasting its success with the failures of Western governments, especially the United States.
The sudden reappearance of the virus in Beijing, previously considered one of the safest cities in the country, has raised the prospect of a second wave of infections and the possible reintroduction of the types of radical closures that had previously interrupted much of the country and hammered the economy.
At a meeting of the State Council, the Chinese cabinet on Sunday evening, Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chunlan said that the risk of spreading the latest epidemic was "very high", citing the dense and very mobile market, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
"Wartime" measures
The Fengtai district, where Xinfadi market is located, announced on Saturday the launch of a "war mechanism" and the creation of a command center to curb the spread of the virus.
On social media, the Global Times, a nationalist tabloid led by the Chinese government, released a video showing paramilitary police wearing masks patrolling the market after it closed on Saturday.
Authorities have imposed a foreclosure on 11 residential complexes near the market, strictly prohibiting anyone from entering or leaving. Residents will have their temperature checked and reported daily, and their food and daily necessities delivered.
Beijing has also deployed mass nucleic acid tests for the coronavirus, setting up 193 sampling booths across the city. More than 76,000 people were tested on Sunday, with 59 people positive, Xu said at a press conference on Monday.
Nucleic acid tests work by detecting the genetic code of the virus and can be more effective at detecting an infection, especially in the early stages, than tests that examine a body's immune response, although the latter are easier to achieve.
Fengtai District collected samples from 8,950 people who worked in the Xinfadi market. So far, more than 6,000 samples have been tested and the results are all negative, according to Xu.
Authorities also searched for and collected samples from nearly 30,000 people who had come to the market in the 14 days before it closed. All 12,000 tests done so far have shown negative results, said Xu.
The Beijing government has ordered anyone visiting the market and their relatives to stay at home for two weeks for medical observation. It also delayed the resumption of lessons for elementary students, originally scheduled for Monday.
Several local officials, including the deputy chief of the Fengtai district, were dismissed following the epidemic.
The epidemic is not the first time the virus has returned. In May, several locations in the northeast of the country were quickly placed under strict lockdown after imported cases caused epidemics among local communities.
Before the new cluster, however, Beijing had registered only 420 local infections and 9 deaths, compared to more than 80,000 confirmed cases and 4,634 deaths nationwide, thanks to its strict travel restrictions imposed at the start of the pandemic .
Like much of the rest of the country, life in Beijing began to resume its normal course, with the reopening of shops and schools, and the crowd returning to shopping malls, restaurants and parks.
A sign of the Chinese government's confidence in its control of the epidemic, the country's parliament even held its annual meeting at the end of May after a delay of two months, allowing thousands of delegates to travel to Beijing from all over the country and to sit side by side. for meetings that lasted 10 days.
Find the source
The Beijing epidemic will be the last test of China's coronavirus containment strategy.
Hu Xijin, editor of the Global Times, said on Twitter that Beijing would not become the second Wuhan, the epicenter of origin of the pandemic where the coronavirus was first detected in December of last year.
"There is no way that Beijing will become Wuhan 2.0. The world will see China's powerful ability to control the epidemic, including strong government leadership, respect for science, the willingness of the public to cooperate and national coordination of control measures. We will win again, "he wrote in an article on Monday.
Authorities in Beijing are still trying to trace the source of the latest epidemic, but pledged to conduct "the strictest epidemiological investigations".
Market president Zhang Yuxi told the Beijing News Friday that the virus was detected on a cutting board used by a seller of imported salmon in the market, raising concerns about wider contamination. Several supermarket chains have since removed the salmon from their shelves, according to the Beijing Daily.
While investigations are still ongoing, a researcher at the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control said that genome sequencing has indicated that the virus found on the market is similar to the strains normally found in Europe.
"But it is still unknown how the virus originated. It could come from contaminated seafood or meat, or be transmitted by people who entered the market via their secretions," said researcher Yang Peng on Sunday. , on the public television channel CCTV.
CNN's Steven Jiang and Shawn Deng contributed to the report.
