Chinese health officials recently transferred more than 1,800 residents of Beijing’s Haidian district to nearby hotels used to accommodate participants of the 2022 Winter Olympics in February as part of a mass quarantine effort to contain transmissions of the Chinese coronavirus, the state-run Global Times reported on Monday.
Chinese Communist Party officials arranged for roughly 100 vehicles to transport the group of residents to the city of Zhangjiakou, located about 120 miles northwest of Beijing, on May 23. Zhangjiakou was one of China’s official host cities for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing from February 4 to February 20.
“Some of the locations they are transferred to include accommodation venues used during the Beijing Winter Olympic Games,” an unidentified Beijing resident relocated to Zhangjiakou told the Global Times on May 23.
The quarantined group will spend a minimum of 7 to 14 days at the isolation facilities, where some families have already been separated from their children.
“Some of the quarantine hotels ask every single person to stay in separate rooms, even if they are from the same household,” Liu Miao, a Beijing resident transferred to Zhangjiakou, told the Global Times on Monday.
Beijing health authorities decided to initiate the group’s quarantine after allegedly detecting “multiple” positive Chinese coronavirus cases at the group’s residential compound in Haidian district in recent days. The action echoed one made by Communist Party officials in Beijing’s Chaoyang district, which borders Haidian district, on May 20. Health authorities transferred 4,979 residents from a residential block in Chaoyang to nearby hotels as part of a separate quarantine effort after allegedly detecting just 26 Chinese coronavirus cases in the relevant housing compound.
Beijing’s government has failed to curb transmissions of the Chinese coronavirus in the city since its latest epidemic of the disease began on April 22. The Chinese national capital recorded 99 new cases of the Chinese coronavirus on May 22. The figure marked Beijing’s highest number of new daily cases of the disease since the city’s latest outbreak started. In response to the caseload spike, Communist Party officials in Beijing ordered millions of residents across six districts to observe tightened movement restrictions on Saturday.
“[R]esidents in Haidian district are suggested to work from home, while residents in four other districts – Chaoyang, Fengtai, Shunyi, Fangshan — are also suggested to work from home until May 28,” the Global Times reported on May 22.
“Six of the city’s 16 districts have told all residents to work from home and avoid gatherings, and said those who have to go to work should have a negative PCR test taken within 48 hours. A further three encouraged certain groups to follow such measures, with each district responsible for implementing its own guidelines,” Reuters observed on May 23.
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