Beijing battles coronavirus second wave as 27 neighbourhoods are put on lockdown and two-thirds of flights are cancelled after outbreak linked to 'European salmon' at market that serves 80% of the city's meat (30 Pics)
More than 1,000 flights have been cancelled to and from Beijing today while 27 neighbourhoods are in lockdown and schools are closed as China battles an alarming new coronavirus outbreak.
A total of 1,255 flights have been scrapped at Beijing's Capital and Daxing Airports, cutting out nearly two-thirds of their usual schedule as China imposes drastic new travel restrictions.
27 neighbourhoods are in lockdown with compulsory temperature checks in place and residents banned from leaving the city, while people in other areas cannot depart Beijing without being tested first.
Kindergartens, primary schools and high schools across Beijing are closed, while some restaurants, bars and nightclubs have also shut their doors amid fears of a full-scale lockdown.
Health officials have reported another 31 new cases in the city today, bringing the total to 137 in the space of five days in Beijing's worst outbreak since early February.
Pang Xinghuo, a senior disease control official, warned today that 'the risk of the outbreak spreading is huge and controlling it is difficult. We can't rule out the possibility the number of cases will persist for a period of time.'
The outbreak has been traced to the massive Xinfadi food market which supplies 80 per cent of the city's meat and vegetables, and one neighbourhood near the market is now at the highest alert level.
China has halted imports from European salmon suppliers amid fears they might be linked to the outbreak at the market, although experts say the fish itself is unlikely to carry the disease.
Xinfadi - which has now been shut - is much larger than the Wuhan seafood market where the first batch of coronavirus cases was detected late last year and where the disease may have first passed to humans.
A passenger wearing a blue protective suit and a face mask pulls a suitcase through the departure hall of Beijing Capital International Airport today, after hundreds of flights were cancelled because of the new coronavirus outbreak
Travellers wearing protective gear - including a child sitting in a buggy with a see-through mask around his face - walk in the terminal of Beijing Capital International Airport earlier today
People deliver food under the watchful eye of a masked official at a residential compound in the Fengtai district which has been ordered into lockdown because of the new surge in cases
People line up to enter a testing site today, following a surge in new cases of coronavirus months after China's initial outbreak in Wuhan which triggered the pandemic
A cordoned-off entrance to the Xinfadi wholesale market, where a new cluster of cases has been detected and which is far larger than the Wuhan seafood market where the world's first batch of cases was discovered late last year
China has seen a surge in new cases centred on Beijing, with 137 cases reported in the capital since last Thursday
Medical workers were today wearing full-body protective suits and goggles to treat Covid-19 patients in quarantined wards in Beijing.
Chinese state media released the first footage from inside the city's Ditan hospital, where all of the 106 patients diagnosed between June 11 and 15 were being treated in isolation.
Ditan Hospital, a former specialised infectious diseases hospital, has been appointed as the main facility to look after the fast-growing number of sufferers in the city.
The hospital was quickly expanding its coronavirus sections and preparing to add 400 more beds to handle the high volume of patients, reported the state-run People's Daily.
In a video posted on Weibo, China's equivalent to Twitter, a medical worker from Ditan hospital told a reporter that all of her patients were in stable condition and recovering from the disease.
In the city, outbound taxi and car-hailing services and some long-distance bus routes were cancelled on Tuesday, when officials put the city back on a level two alert, the second-highest level in a four-tier system.
That reversed a downgrade from level two to level three a mere 10 days earlier after China declared it had brought the epidemic under control.
'The epidemic situation in the capital is extremely severe,' Beijing city spokesman Xu Hejian warned yesterday.
In Beijing, police guarded roadblocks at compounds near Xinfandi while delivery staff on bikes and in vans queued to hand over food and other supplies for residents.
'When they shut the market, it was a surprise,' said Wei, 32, who came with her boyfriend to deliver supplies to her mother who stayed in a compound where a case was confirmed.
'Many people heard and left the compounds, but my mother is old and cannot leave easily. Today, we brought her some vegetables and medicine.'
The market was shut in the early hours of Saturday to be disinfected and government has ordered anyone who visited the market, and their close contacts, to isolate at home for two weeks.
State media reported that rail officials were granting full refunds on all tickets to and from Beijing, an apparent bid to discourage people from travelling even though services have not been officially cancelled.
'What I'm worried about is whether there will be a level one response like it was before, making it impossible for people to work,' said a 23-year-old media worker called Wang.
Women wearing face masks walk past check-in counters at Beijing Capital International Airport after scores of domestic flights in and out of the Chinese capital were cancelled
People deliver food across a barrier near a residential compound that is under lockdown in the Fengtai district
People wearing masks line up to be tested at a sports centre in Beijing today as Chinese authorities scramble to contain a new outbreak of the disease
A man in protective gear is seen at an entrance to the Xinfadi wholesale market, where a new coronavirus cluster has come to light prompting drastic new restrictions
Footage which emerged yesterday showed officials in hazmat suits barking orders through a megaphone while people line up in queues and pack into buses to be 'rounded up' into quarantine.
Activist Jennifer Zeng, who posted the footage, claims that seven hotels were requisitioned as quarantine sites with people rounded up in an all-day operation..
Officials in the city said they would test stall owners and managers at all of its food markets, restaurants and government canteens.
All markets, restaurants, canteens and offices have been instructed to carry out deep clean and disinfection while museums, galleries and parks are running at limited capacity.
Players and coaches from the Beijing Super League football team were all tested and given the week off as their training camp is in the same area of the city as the outbreak.
Zhao Honglei, manager of grocery chain store Shuguoyan, said his 13 staff members had all tested negative.
Customers seemed reassured by the testing, he said, but online orders had increased tenfold in recent days. 'People are concerned that it might be crowded at shops or they might get infected,' he said.
Beijing's testing capacity has been expanded to 90,000 a day, according to state news agency Xinhua.
These pictures purport to show Beijing residents being rounded up and forced into quarantine as the capital goes back into lockdown amid an 'extremely severe' coronavirus outbreak
Pictured: A Chinese epidemic control worker wears a protective suit and mask as he directs people at a site where authorities were performing nucleic acid tests for COVID-19 on citizens who have had contact with the the Xinfadi Wholesale Market, June 15, 2020 in Beijing, China
Officials in hazmat suits were seen shouting orders at Beijing citizens as parts of the city were plunged into quarantine measures after an outbreak of Covid-19
Pictured: People get tested for the coronavirus at a temporary testing facility in Beijing at an outdoor sports center June 15, 2020
Pictured: Paramilitary police officers and security staff wearing protective face masks stand guard next to the closed Xinfadi market, in Fengtai district, Beijing, China, 14 June 2020
The new waves of infections broke out after traces of the novel coronavirus were found on a chopping board used to cut salmon in Xinfadi. Pictured, people wearing face masks drive their motocycles during rush hours in Beijing on Tuesday
Beijing citizens who came into contact with the Xinfadi Wholesale Market, either directly or indirectly, were tested in the Chinese capital on Tuesday
Queues stretched far back in Beijing on Tuesday as citizens who have come into contact with the Xinfadi wholesale market were tested for Covid-19
The Xinfadi wholesale market in Beijing has been closed after a new coronavirus cluster was traced back there
Security is out guarding entrances to the Xinfadi market in Beijing as the city reports a sudden increase in the number of Covid-19 cases
The boss of the Xinfadi market on Saturday told reporters that researchers had found traces of the coronavirus on a chopping board used to cut imported salmon.
The reports prompted major supermarkets in Beijing to remove salmon from their shelves, and genetic traces of the virus from the Beijing market outbreak suggested it could have come from Europe.
'We can't send any salmon to China now, the market is closed,' Regin Jacobsen, CEO of Oslo-listed salmon supplier Bakkafrost.
Both Bakkafrost and Norway Royal Salmon said employees had been tested for the virus, and none had tested positive.
Following a meeting between Chinese and Norwegian officials on Tuesday, both countries have concluded that the source of the outbreak did not originate with fish from the Nordic country, Odd Emil Ingebrigtsen said.
The Chinese disease control centre said that no evidence showed salmon was the host or intermediate host of the virus.
Shi Guoqing, the deputy director of the CDC, said at a press conference on Tuesday that researchers did not find the novel coronavirus on salmon.
Wu Zunyou, the body's chief epidemiologist, told state broadcaster CCTV on Monday that the pathogen 'resembles the virus strains in Europe the most, which, however, doesn't mean that it came from Europe'.
Hospital workers were at a public testing center as Beijing tries to establish how many people have been infected in a recent coronavirus outbreak
A woman waits for the delivery of goods she ordered online in the Yilanyuan residential area which is under lockdown after a new COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak near the closed Xinfadi Market, in Beijing on June 14, 2020
Outside of Beijing, Hebei, Liaoning, Sichuan and Zhejiang provinces have reported new cases linked to Xinfadi.
Some provinces are imposing quarantine requirements on visitors from Beijing, including Heilongjiang, which only recently brought a local outbreak under control.
An additional two domestic cases, one in neighbouring Hebei province and another in Zhejiang, were reported by national authorities on Wednesday, while there were 11 imported cases.
Officials said that since May 30, more than 200,000 people had visited Xinfadi market, which supplies more than 70 percent of Beijing's fruit and vegetables.
Authorities in Macau, the world's biggest casino hub, also demanded that arrivals from Beijing undergo a 14-day quarantine.
Another Chinese expert has warned that the strain of coronavirus found in Beijing is more infectious than the one that caused the world's first outbreak in Wuhan.
Professor Yang Zhanqiu from the University of Wuhan said it took Wuhan three weeks to record 62 patients when the virus first broke out, whereas more than 100 Beijing residents have tested positive in the space of four days.
'The infectivity of a virus would grow stronger or weaker during its evolution, but I believe the [strain of] coronavirus found in Beijing's Xinfadi market is more powerful than the one from Wuhan's Huanan market,' the expert told state-run outlet The Global Times.
Residents were still out shopping in supermarkets in Beijing on Monday, but they wore face masks to prevent spreading Covid-19
Police have parked outside entrances to the Xinfadi wholesale market, which has been closed following cases of coronavirus infections in Beijing
The World Health Organization has already expressed concern about the cluster, pointing to Beijing's size and connectivity.
'A cluster like this is a concern and it needs to be investigated and controlled - and that is exactly what the Chinese authorities are doing,' WHO emergencies director Mike Ryan said.
Beijing had turned into a virtual fortress at the height of the pandemic, with people arriving from other regions or countries required to undergo quarantines.
But while international flights are still diverted to other cities to prevent imported cases, other measures had been relaxed in recent months.
The annual meeting of China's parliament in May saw thousands of delegates flock to the capital and Beijing boasted of its success in handling the crisis.
'The government raises the risk level of the epidemic on the basis of streets and districts, instead of the (entire) city. This could help ease people's panic to some extent,' said Lu Jiehua, a sociology professor at Peking University.
'The daily habit of wearing masks, frequent hand-washing and fewer public gatherings have already become routine behaviours for everyone, which is a big change. People will still be on high alert, but it's not caused by extreme panic.'
People wore protective face masks as they queued outside a health checkup center to receive a Covid-19 test on Monday
Public transport routes heading toward Xinfadi wholesale market have been changed and approach roads closed after a coronavirus cluster emerged from the market
The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today that no evidence showed salmon was the host or intermediate host of the virus. Pictured, residents wearing masks line up to register information at a residential block today
Beijing battles coronavirus second wave as 27 neighbourhoods are put on lockdown and two-thirds of flights are cancelled after outbreak linked to 'European salmon' at market that serves 80% of the city's meat (30 Pics)
![Beijing battles coronavirus second wave as 27 neighbourhoods are put on lockdown and two-thirds of flights are cancelled after outbreak linked to 'European salmon' at market that serves 80% of the city's meat (30 Pics)]()
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