China: Beijing goes into State of ‘Wartime Emergency’ after Spike in COVID-19 Cases

A district in China’s capital city of Beijing has been put into a state of ‘wartime emergency’ after a spike in COVID-19 cases.

The spike has been linked to a food market and has sparked fears of a fresh outbreak in the country.

11 neighbourhoods in the area surrounding the Xinfadi wholesale market in Beijing’s Fengtai district have gone into lockdown, where officials said it was in ‘wartime emergency mode’.

The cluster of new cases was detected after 517 people were tested for the virus. 45 proved positive.

Beijing’s officials have announced that more than 10,000 people at the wholesale market are to be tested, and the premises completely disinfected.

The new cases of the disease are the first to be locally transmitted in more than 50 days.

As well as suspending domestic tourism, sporting events have also been cancelled in Beijing. Plans to reopen schools for some pupils have been scrapped.

Pang Xinghuo, an official at the Beijing Centre for Disease Control, said: “Preliminary judgement suggests these cases may have come into contact with a contaminated environment in the market, or were infected after being in contact with infected people. We cannot rule out subsequent cases in the future.”