New wave of COVID-19 cases from Beijing market spreads to Liaoning

A police officer wearing a face mask is seen outside an entrance of the Xinfadi wholesale market, which has been closed for business after new coronavirus infections were detected, in Beijing, China - Reuters

BEIJING (REUTERS): After weeks with almost no COVID-19 infections, Beijing has recorded dozens of new cases in recent days, all linked to a major wholesale food market, raising concerns about a resurgence of the disease.

There had been almost no new cases in the city for almost two months until an infection was reported on 12 June, and since then the total number has climbed to 51, including eight more in the first seven hours of Sunday.

According to the city’s health authority, contact tracing showed all the infected people had either worked or shopped inside Xinfadi, said to be the largest food market in Asia, or had been in contact with someone who was there.

“Beijing has entered an extraordinary period,” city spokesman Xu Hejian told a news conference on Sunday.

The market was closed before dawn on Saturday and the district containing the market put itself on a “wartime” footing.

The Beijing outbreak has already spread to the neighbouring northeastern province of Liaoning. According to the provincial health authority, the two new cases confirmed in Liaoning on Sunday were both people who had been in close contact with confirmed cases in Beijing.

At least 10 Chinese cities, including Harbin and Dalian, have urged residents not to travel to the capital or to report to authorities if they have done so recently.

Huaxiang, a neighbourhood in the same district as the food market and which has one of China’s biggest used car centres, raised its epidemic risk level to high on Sunday, becoming the only neighbourhood in the country to be on high alert. This status means there can be no economic activity until the outbreak is controlled.

As of 3 p.m. on Sunday, 10 neighbourhoods in Beijing, such as Financial Street, had raised their risk levels from low to medium.

“Beijing will not turn into a second Wuhan, spreading the virus to many cities all over the country and needing a lockdown,” a government epidemic expert told Health Times on Sunday, referring to the city where the epidemic in China first emerged late last year.

Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention former Chief Epidemiologist and currently a senior expert with the National Health Commission Zeng Guang predicted that the outbreak will likely be controlled after the initial spike of a few days, according to the report by Health Times, a paper run by state media People’s Daily.

Like other countries around the world, China is concerned to prevent a second wave from emerging after easing lockdowns that hammered its economy earlier this year.