Beijing is tightening its hardline “zero COVID” rules, mandating that children show a negative test result to enter parks in China’s capital.
Children older than three will need to show a green health code on the system that controls people’s movements, as well as a negative COVID-19 result no older than 72 hours, a statement from the Beijing Municipal Administration Center of Parks said.
Previously, children were able to go to parks and other public places without getting their test results checked provided their parents met requirements for entry.
Photo: AP
China is relying on frequent testing to identify, then quash, transmission chains early even as its zero-tolerance approach comes under increasing strain from more transmissible variants and isolates it from the rest of the world.
While Beijing has contained its recent flare-up without a widespread lockdown, authorities in the city are under immense pressure to control the situation ahead of the party congress in the second half of the year, when Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is expected to secure an unprecedented third term as leader.
Getting a test is not particularly onerous and children have had to participate in previous rounds of mass testing. China is setting up tens of thousands of booths across the country, initially with a focus on major cities, to meet a pledge to ensure residents will always be just a 15-minute walk away from a swabbing point.
Still, the new rule was seen as extreme even by a population that has been subject to varying degrees of pandemic curbs. A hashtag linked to the story was one of the top five trending items on China’s Sina Weibo yesterday morning, with posters questioning how useful the policy will be.
For children wanting to play in parks, they will now need to swipe their national identification cards on a machine or have their health status checked via someone else’s phone.
Beijing’s most recent cluster was linked to a bar, and there has never been an infection linked to a park. More than 95 percent of Chinese children between three and 17 years old are now fully vaccinated, according to latest data.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
RSS