The cases are linked to 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 shut down since Saturday.
The sudden reemergence of the virus in Beijing, previously considered among the country’s safest cities, has raised the prospect of a second wave of infections and the possible reintroduction of the types of sweeping lockdowns that had previously brought much of the country to a halt and hammered the economy.
“Wartime” measures
Authorities imposed a lockdown on 11 residential compounds in the vicinity of the market, strictly prohibiting anyone from entering or leaving. Residents will have their temperatures checked and reported on a daily basis, and their food and daily necessities delivered.
Beijing also rolled out mass nucleic acid testing for the coronavirus, setting up 193 sampling booths across the city. More than 76,000 people were tested on Sunday, with 59 people testing positive, Xu said at a news conference on Monday.
Nucleic acid tests work by detecting the virus’ genetic code, and can be more effective at detecting an infection, particularly in the early stages, than tests which examine a body’s immune response, though the latter are easier to conduct.
Fengtai district has 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 tracked down and collected samples from nearly 30,000 people who had been to the market in the 14 days prior to its closure. All of the 12,000 tests conducted so far showed negative results, Xu said.
The Beijing government has ordered anyone who visited the market and their close contacts to stay home for two weeks for medical observation. It also delayed the resumption of classes for elementary school students, which was originally scheduled for Monday.
Several local officials, including the deputy head of Fengtai district, have been dismissed following the outbreak.
The outbreak is not the first time the virus has returned. In May, several places in the country’s northeast were swiftly placed under stringent lockdown after imported cases caused outbreaks among local communities.
Before the new cluster, however, Beijing had only recorded 420 local infections and 9 deaths compared to over 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 had started to return to normal, with businesses and schools reopening, and crowds returning to shopping malls, restaurants and parks.
Tracing the source
The outbreak in Beijing will be the latest test of China’s coronavirus containment strategy.
Beijing authorities are still trying to trace the source of the latest outbreak, however, pledging to conduct “the strictest epidemiological investigations.”
Zhang Yuxi, the market’s chairman, told the state-run Beijing News on Friday that the virus had been detected on a chopping board used by a seller of imported salmon at the market, leading to fears of wider contamination. Several supermarket chains have since removed salmon from their shelves, according to Beijing Daily.
CNN’s Steven Jiang and Shawn Deng contributed to reporting.