A Beijing district yesterday put itself on a “wartime” footing and the capital banned tourism and sports events after a cluster of novel coronavirus infections centered 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 virus, district official Chu Junwei (初軍威) told a news briefing.
None were showing symptoms of COVID-19, he said, but added that 11 neighborhoods 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.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“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 neighborhoods,” 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 7.76 million people worldwide and killed more than 428,000.
They also underline how even in countries that have had great success in curbing the spread of the virus, clusters can sometimes easily arise.
The entire Xinfadi market was shut down at 3am yesterday, after two men working at a meat research center who had recently visited the market were reported to have the virus.
It was not immediately clear how they had been infected.
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 across the city.
They plan for more than 10,000 people at the Xinfadi market to be tested for the virus.
According to the Xinfadi Web site, more than 1,500 tonnes of seafood, 18,000 tonnes of vegetables and 20,000 tonnes of fruit are traded at the market daily.
A city spokesman told the briefing that all six COVID-19 patients confirmed in Beijing on Friday had visited the market.
The capital would suspend sports events and tourist travel from other parts of China, effective immediately, he said.
Beijing’s Yonghe Temple and National Grand Theatre also announced they would close from yesterday, and the city government said that it had dropped plans to reopen schools tomorrow for students in grades 1 through 3 because of the new cases.
One person at an agricultural market in the city’s northwestern Haidian District also tested positive for the novel coronavirus, Chu said.
Following reports in state-run newspapers that the virus 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 that it would remove salmon products from its shelves from yesterday.
Some Beijing residents, including a man shopping at a Carrefour supermarket in Fengtai District, said that 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.
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