Beijing - A Beijing district put itself
on a "wartime" footing and the capital banned tourism and sports
events on Saturday after a cluster of novel coronavirus
infections centred around a major wholesale market sparked fears
of a new wave of Covid-19.
Forty-five people out of 517 tested with throat swabs at the
Xinfadi market in the city's southwestern Fengtai district had
tested positive for the coronavirus, Chu Junwei, a district
official, told a briefing.
None were showing symptoms of Covid-19, he said, but added
that 11 neighbourhoods in the vicinity of the market, which
claims to be the largest agricultural wholesale market in Asia,
had been locked down with 24-hour guards put in place.
"In accordance with the principle of putting the safety of
the masses and health first, we have adopted lockdown measures
for the Xinfadi market and surrounding neighbourhoods," Chu
said.
The district is in a "wartime emergency mode," he added.
The closure of the market and new restrictions come as
concerns grow about a second wave of the pandemic, which has
infected more than 7.66 million people worldwide and killed more
than 420,000.
They also underline how even in countries which have had
great success in curbing the spread of the virus, clusters can
sometimes easily arise.
The entire Xinfadi market was shut down at 3 a.m. on
Saturday (1900 GMT on Friday), after two men working at a meat
research centre who had recently visited the market were
reported to have the virus. It was not immediately clear how
they had been infected.
On Saturday, market entrances were blocked and police stood
guard. Beijing authorities had earlier halted beef and mutton
trading at the market and had closed other wholesale markets
around the city.
They plan for more than 10,000 people at the Xinfadi market
to take nucleic acid tests to detect coronavirus infections.
According to the Xinfadi website, more than 1,500 tonnes of
seafood, 18,000 tonnes of vegetables and 20,000 tonnes of fruit
are traded at the market daily.
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A city spokesman told the briefing that all six Covid-19
patients confirmed in Beijing on Friday had visited the Xinfadi
market. The capital will suspend sports events and tourists from
other parts of China, effective immediately, he said.
Beijing's Yonghe temple and National Theatre also announced
they would close from Saturday, and the city government said it
had dropped plans to reopen schools on Monday for students in
grades one through three because of the new cases.
One person at an agricultural market in the city's
northwestern Haidian district also tested positive for the
coronavirus, Chu said.
Highlighting the new sense of alarm within the city,
health authorities visited the home of a Reuters reporter in
Beijing's Dongcheng district on Saturday to ask whether she had
visited the Xinfadi market, which is 15 km (9 miles) away. They
said the visit was part of patrols Dongcheng was conducting.
And following reports in state-run newspapers that the
coronavirus was discovered on chopping boards used for imported
salmon at the market, major supermarkets in Beijing removed
salmon from their shelves overnight.
That concern also spread to other cities, with a major
agricultural wholesale market in Chengdu, the capital of the
southwestern province of Sichuan, saying it would remove salmon
products from its shelves from Saturday.
In Nanjing, capital of the eastern province of Jiangsu, a
local association of restaurants said it would halt the serving
of foods containing raw seafood or animal products.
Some Beijing residents, including a man shopping at a
Carrefour supermarket in Fengtai district, said they were
confident authorities had the situation under control.
"If I were worried, I wouldn't come here to buy meat. I
believe it has been quarantined," said the man, who gave his
surname as Zhang.