China:authorities seals mall, housing compounds over Covid flare-up

In China, authorities on Thursday sealed off a mall and locked down several residential compounds after sudden outbreak of coronavirus in Beijing. Six new cases were found in Beijing's central districts of Chaoyang and Haidian Thursday morning, local media reported, all close contacts of people infected recently in northeastern Jilin province. Raffles City mall in Dongcheng, in the capital,was sealed off Wednesday evening after a close contact of a person with Covid-19 was found to have visited the mall, the Beijing Youth Daily reported. The COVID flare-up was reports months after China curbed widespread transmission of the virus through snap lockdowns, mass testing and travel restrictions. However, the authorities are now on high alert as a nationwide spike linked to domestic travel in the past month.

The latest spike occurred during a high-level meeting of top Communist Party leaders in Beijing. In the meantime, the health officials in Beijing said more than 280 close contacts have been identified, with almost 12,000 people screened for the virus in both Chaoyang and Haidian districts. "This cluster outbreak was sudden with many places covering a large area. It involves many people, and prevention and control is very difficult," said city government spokesman Xu Hejian. As per reports,five residential communities, a primary school and two office compounds were placed under snap lockdowns early Thursday, with tens of thousands of residents barred from leaving and made to undergo mass testing. As more nations lift coronavirus restrictions, China continues to pursue a strict zero-Covid strategy that has seen its international borders largely closed since the start of the pandemic.