Covid Lockdown In China

Beijing has reimposed tough Covid measures in its most populous district, including closing entertainment venues, after a growing cluster of infections linked to bars ended a five-day streak of no community spread.

Nearly 30 Covid patients, detected in 12 of the city’s 16 districts between Thursday and Friday afternoon, were found to have links with Heaven Supermarket, a bar near the Worker’s Stadium in Chaoyang district, authorities said at a press conference Friday. Of them, 26 had visited the bar early this week, authorities said.

Not all of the bar’s recent visitors had scanned the bar’s QR code with their health code app, or had their temperature and recent Covid test results checked on entering, making contact tracing harder, authorities said, noting that the city expected more cases to emerge among bar-goers and their close contacts.

Chaoyang district — home to roughly 3.5 million people and many foreign embassies — shut down all internet cafe and entertainment venues like karaoke parlors on Thursday, after learning that three new Covid patients had visited the Heaven Supermarket bar. Two other positive cases were later found to have visited the bar and several others in Sanlitun and the Worker’s Stadium area.

The district also kicked off mass testing in several neighborhoods on the same day, including in Sanlitun and the nearby residential neighborhoods of Tuanjiehu and Hujialou, local authorities said.

Before the new cases, Beijing had reported no new cases outside quarantine zones for five days. On Monday, the city relaxed Covid rules it had imposed on most of its districts, such as a ban on dining-in at restaurants and work-from-home orders, as it moved to return to normalcy after declaring the latest outbreak under control.

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Beijing relaxed Covid rules for most of the city’s districts on Monday, allowing restaurants there to restart dine-in services, as the capital moves to return to normalcy after declaring it had the latest outbreak under control.

In all districts except Fengtai and some parts of Changping, the city also reopened scenic areas, parks and indoor venues like cinemas, albeit at 75% capacity, on Monday. Beijing resumed public transport in these districts on the same day, allowing workers who had been asked to work from home to return to the office, according to a state media report.

Residents who wanted to enter a public venue or office building would need to hold a negative Covid test result obtained within 72 hours, longer than the previously required 48 hours, the report said. The city planned to gradually resume in-person teaching, with most primary and middle school students going back on June 13 and kindergarten pupils returning on June 20, the report added.

The report came after officials said at a press conference Friday that 13 of the city’s 16 districts had reported no new cases outside quarantine for seven straight days and had achieved the goal of “no community spread,” a key government precondition for lifting restrictions. Before the report, most restrictions had been in place for a month or so, although some were relaxed in certain districts in late May.

Beijing officials declared Saturday that the local outbreak has entered its final stage, while reiterating that they would keep to the “zero-Covid” policy in holding the virus at bay. As China battled its worst outbreak in two years, public frustration has been on the rise over the policy, especially in Shanghai which has just lifted a two-month lockdown.

The country reported 86 local infections Sunday, mostly in the northern region of Inner Mongolia, according to the National Health Commission (NHC). Both Shanghai and Beijing reported single digit new cases.

At a Sunday press conference, NHC official Lei Zhenglong urged local governments to balance their Covid response with economic and social development in a more effective way. He also called on authorities to prohibit certain acts, such as casually quarantining residents from low-risk Covid areas and extending the isolation period for residents already in quarantine.

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Beijing’s southwestern district of Fengtai has asked most of its 2 million residents to work from home starting Tuesday, while prohibiting anyone from entering or leaving the district unless necessary.

The restrictions (link in Chinese) will be tentatively effective until Sunday. They came after the capital reported 18 local Covid cases yesterday, only one of which was found outside quarantine areas. The case was from Fengtai, authorities said.

Monday’s case was the first local community infection in the capital in three days. It means “the risk of a rebound still exists,” city officials told a Tuesday press conference, vowing to eliminate any community cases as soon as possible.

At the press conference, officials also said Beijing detected a community case in Changping district Tuesday, though the number of daily Covid cases in the city has fallen for nine straight days. Changping will kick off three new rounds of testing for residents in certain areas from the same day, officials said.

It remains unclear how the new cases will affect the city’s anti-Covid efforts as a whole. After local authorities said over the weekend that the city’s month-old outbreak was under control with no new community cases found the previous day, Beijing relaxed Covid curbs in the districts of Chaoyang, Shunyi and Fangshan, including lifting work-from-home rules for most residents living there and largely resuming public transportation.

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Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan has urged authorities in Beijing to take more “thorough” measures to stop the spread of Covid-19 in the community, moving faster to transfer and isolate infected people and their close contacts as an outbreak has dragged on for a month.

She also reiterated the country’s adherence to the “zero-Covid” policy Monday when she visited some places in the capital which recently reported clusters of infections, state media reported. The places included several in Haidian district, home to some of China’s top universities.

Sun’s remarks are a sign that Beijing may further tighten Covid curbs, though the current stringent measures — regular mass testing, centralized quarantine and work-from-home orders — have affected millions of local residents.

The city reported 48 local infections Monday, down from the current outbreak’s daily peak of 99 on Sunday. It has logged more than 1,500 local cases since April 22, according to local authorities.

Beijing has ramped up Covid quarantine. On Monday, Haidian authorities said in a statement (link in Chinese) that more than 1,800 residents of a local community had been sent to the neighboring city of Zhangjiakou for centralized quarantine.

The transfer is aimed at minimizing the risk of Covid spread within the community, after several positive cases were found there, according to the statement. The transferred residents will be isolated for at least seven days at hotels that once “served international events,” the statement said. Zhangjiakou was a co-host city of the Beijing Winter Olympics that took place earlier this year.

Last week, nearly 5,000 residents from a community in the city’s Chaoyang district were taken to hotels for seven days of centralized quarantine, after more than two dozen cases were identified in the community already in lockdown.

The mass transfers have sparked concerns online, with some saying that transferring healthy residents from home to centralized quarantine facilities would increase their risk of infection. Others questioned whether the transfers are only meant to clear the virus cases from official numbers.

Some cities like Beijing and Shanghai use “zero community spread” as the criteria to consider an outbreak as having been contained, and Covid cases found among those in centralized quarantine are not counted as community cases.

Also on Monday, Beijing asked companies and institutions subject to work-from-home requirement to limit the number of workers at office to 30% of their normal levels. The city has told residents in six areas, including Chaoyang and Haidian, to work from home until Saturday, Bloomberg reported.

Contact reporter Wang Xintong (xintongwang@caixin.com) and editor Lu Zhenhua (zhenhualu@caixin.com)

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What’s new: Beijing rolled out new measures to tighten up virus screening as the city races to contain a Covid-19 outbreak driven by the highly transmissible omicron variant.

Starting Thursday, people need to provide negative nucleic acid test results conducted within 48 hours to enter public venues across the city, officials said Wednesday at a press briefing.

Taxis and ride-hailing services were told to avoid traveling across multiple districts and regions in the city where infection risks are believed to be higher.

In addition, Beijing will expand the use of rapid antigen tests to screen certain groups of people with higher exposure to the virus, including staffers at hotels, medical facilities, transportation systems and delivery services.

The context: Beijing reported 56 new infections over the previous 24 hours, a disease official said Wednesday. All the cases were detected among people under quarantine.

The capital city went on high alert and ramped up control measures as the latest wave of outbreak started earlier this month. The city postponed school reopenings, closed indoor entertainment venues and told most people in the northeast district Chaoyang to work from home.

Free and mandatory Covid tests were introduced in the city of 22 million on a regular basis.

Quick Takes are condensed versions of China-related stories for fast news you can use.

Contact reporter Han Wei (weihan@caixin.com) and editor Bob Simison (bob.simison@caixin.com)

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What’s new: Schools in Beijing will remain closed for at least one week after the Labor Day holiday as the city moves to quell a new wave of Covid flare-ups.

All kindergartens, primary and middle schools, and secondary vocational schools in Beijing will postpone class reopening until May 11, one week after the five-day holiday that originally was to end Wednesday, city officials said Tuesday at a briefing.

The postponement is a precautionary measure, and the exact time of class resumption will be determined by the pandemic situation, officials said. Meanwhile, colleges and universities in Beijing were ordered to strengthen campus management. Students and faculty living on campus were told to avoid traveling outside unless necessary.

The context: Beijing reported 53 new Covid-19 cases over 24 hours Tuesday, including six asymptomatic cases. The new infections raise the tally of new infections in Beijing to 453 since the latest outbreak started April 22, according to the municipal public health authority.

The capital city of 22 million people sealed up areas with high transmission risks and launched rounds of mass testing in hopes of containing the virus while avoiding the chaos of widespread shutdowns as in Shanghai. Beijing ordered restaurants to close indoor dining as the Labor Day holiday started and limited access to parks and scenic areas.

The outbreak in Beijing remains at a stable but high level with undetected transmission chains hidden in communities, said Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing municipal disease prevention and control center, at a Monday press conference. The city will accelerate virus screening and put restrictions in place to prevent further spread, Pang said.

Quick Takes are condensed versions of China-related stories for fast news you can use.

Contact reporter Han Wei (weihan@caixin.com) and editor Bob Simison (bob.simison@caixin.com)

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