Beijing is introducing more Covid measures as cases mount before Olympics
January 25, 2022: On Sunday, Beijing’s city government introduced new measures to contain a recent outbreak of Covid-19. China’s capital continued to report new local virus cases in two weeks before it hosted the Winter Olympics Games.
Nine locally transmitted cases were found in Beijing on January 22, the National Health Commission said on Sunday, of which six were in the city’s Fengtai district.
Fengtai will organize nucleic acid tests for Covid-19 for all of its residents on Sunday, district health authorities said.
Authorities have asked residents of “risky areas,” including a neighborhood of Fengtai, not to leave the city, a local government spokesman said at a Sunday news conference, which adds that Fengtai residents have been asked to avoid mass gatherings.
Beijing city has asked residents to proactively conduct nucleic acid tests if they find themselves with Covid-19-such symptoms within 14 days of receiving any deliveries from overseas, local authorities said in a statement dated on Saturday.
Authorities have suggested Beijing’s first case of the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus could have arrived via a package from Canada.
In Fengtai, few kindergartens have told parents that children who have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 will not be able to attend, two parents told Reuters.
Reuters could not determine if the requirement is a government regulation or the kindergartens’ own rules.
On Friday, a mother surnamed Wang, whose child attends a private kindergarten in Fengtai, said a teacher told her that unvaccinated children would not be allowed to return from Monday, which cited new government regulations, without providing Wang any official documents.
“This is not voluntarily. This is coercion,” Wang told Reuters. She said she had filed a complaint with authorities in the hope of having the requirement removed.
Reuters did not reach local authorities for comment on a non-business day.
Mainland China reported 56 new Covid-19 cases on January 22, down from 63 a day earlier, the National Health Commission said.
Nineteen were locally transmitted versus 23 a day earlier of the new cases.
The number of the new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, decreases to 34 from 43.
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