Beijing Extends Virus Curbs To More Areas

Beijing authorities imposed more restrictions to stop the spread of a fresh outbreak of coronavirus in the capital to other provinces, banning outbound travel of high-risk people and suspending some transportation services out of the city.

Beijing officials reported on Tuesday 27 new confirmed Covid-19 cases for June 15, taking the cumulative number of infections in the city's current outbreak to 106.

Authorities marked more Beijing neighbourhoods as medium-risk areas late on Monday, taking the total to 22. Medium-risk areas are required to take strict measures to prevent the potential entry of infection.

Overnight, some parts of Beijing including the city's old-style hutong neighbourhoods were walled up, with entry and exit restricted to a few round-the-clock security checkpoints.

All high-risk people, such as close contacts of confirmed cases, are not allowed to leave the city, state media reported on Tuesday, citing municipal officials.

Outbound taxi and car-hailing services have also been suspended.

Governments in many parts of China have imposed quarantine requirements on visitors from Beijing.

One suspected case who flew from Beijing to southwestern Sichuan province has become a confirmed case, health authorities said on Tuesday, and local officials are rounding up 111 close contacts for observation.

That makes it the most serious flare-up in China since February, stoking fears of a second-wave of the respiratory disease which emerged in the central city of Wuhan late last year and has now infected more than 8 million people worldwide.

While not in a Wuhan-style lockdown, Beijing has gone into a "wartime" mode on a district level, with local neighbourhoods instituting 24-hour security checkpoints, closing schools and telling people to step up social distancing.

The outbreak has been traced to the sprawling Xinfadi wholesale food centre in the southwest of Beijing where thousands of tonnes of vegetables, fruits and meat change hands each day. (Reuters)