#COVID19: Beijing Under Strict Lockdown After First Case of Coronavirus

Lockdown is currently being imposed on eleven neighbourhoods in Beijing, capital of China since the city recorded it’s first coronavirus cases 50 days ago while tests commenced for 10,000 market staff.

The outbreak has been linked to the city’s largest wholesale market and official said,a total of 45 people out of 517 tested at the Xinfadi market tested positive for Covid-19 even as none were displaying symptoms.

The authorities also want to test everyone who has had recent contact with the market as well as those living in the district surrounding it, as these are the first new confirmed cases in Beijing for more than 50 days.

Xinfadi market in the city’s south-western Fengtai district was shut down in the early hours of Saturday, after two men who had recently visited the market were reported to have Covid-19.

China’s coronavirus outbreak was brought under control through some of the world’s strictest lockdown measures after the disease was detected in the city of Wuhan.

More than 4,600 people in China have lost their lives to the coronavirus out of around 426,000 worldwide, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

Chinese officials aren’t sure how the huge Xinfandi wholesale market – which supplies 80% of Beijing’s vegetables and meat – has become the source of a new coronavirus outbreak.

In recent months the Chinese government’s strategy has been to completely isolate any town or city where a coronavirus cluster has emerged.

This appears to have worked but locking down all of Beijing, at time when it seemed like the virus emergency had been brought under control, is not something they’ll want to do in a hurry.

Beijing sports have been cancelled and major public facilities are pulling down the shutters again as the country now fears that there might be a second wave of the virus in the capital.