COVID in Beijing spreads to 8 districts; more tests, enough supplies on the way

Beijing has reported 70 COVID-19 cases since Friday, expanding the affected area to eight districts, which has added difficulties for control and prevention work, senior official said on Monday.

Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said at a news conference on Monday that the gene sequencing of six samples from the infections showed that the infections involve the Omicron variant and are part of the same transmission chain.

"The virus gene sequencing is identical to the recent infection clusters outside Beijing," she said.

Beijing reported 29 locally transmitted cases between 4 pm on Sunday and 4 pm on Monday, involving two new clusters that were caused by people dining out together.

Of them, 10 were infected in a restaurant in Fangshan district and five were infected in a restaurant in Chaoyang district.

Of the 70 cases, Chaoyang registered more than half, the most in the latest outbreak. As of 4 pm on Monday, it had traced more than 2,000 contacts of infections and put them under quarantine.

Yang Beibei, deputy head of the Chaoyang, which has around 3.5 million residents, said the district started the first round of districtwide nucleic acid testing on Monday.

The other two rounds will be on Wednesday and Friday.

"To ensure that all people can take the tests rapidly and efficiently, the authorities in Chaoyang have set up 1,301 testing spots," she said. "By 4 pm on Monday, the district has taken more than 3 million samples."

On Monday, Chaoyang designated a temporary controlled zone. Residents living in the zone are asked to either stay at home or not go out of their residential communities. Businesses have suspended operations in the zone, except for supermarkets and hospitals.

Beijing also plans to expand screening from Chaoyang to 11 more of the city's 16 districts, which will conduct three rounds of nucleic acid testing from Tuesday to Saturday, Xu Hejian, spokesman for the Beijing municipal government, said at a news conference on Monday night.

Meanwhile, amid the spike of cases, some areas in Chaoyang saw people lining up at several markets, stockpiling food and other necessities, local media reported.

To keep up with the rapidly soaring number of purchases starting on Sunday night, supermarkets and restaurants in the city stocked up with double or triple the usual amount of daily goods－especially vegetables, eggs, meat and fruit.

Wumart, a supermarket chain in Beijing, extended its operating hours on Sunday night to give all customers enough time to shop and leave. It has kept twice its usual daily stock of vegetables.

Carrefour Group said its stores in Beijing have tripled their stock of vegetables.

Xiabuxiabu Restaurant Management Co, which operates around 300 hotpot outlets in Beijing, said it has increased its take-out delivery service to meet demand.

On Sunday, some of Xiabuxiabu's restaurants had seen a 150 percent increase in take-out orders compared with Friday.

Zhao Weidong, deputy head of the city's commerce bureau, said seven major wholesale agricultural produce markets provided a total of 22,700 metric tons of vegetables on Monday.

"Other stocks such as rice, flour and cooking oil in the city can support residents' needs for 30 days," he said.

"Online vegetable and fruit stores have also increased delivery staff by 50 percent to ensure the supply," he added.