Communist Party officials locked down much of Beijing’s Chaoyang district over the weekend to contain a fresh outbreak of the Chinese coronavirus days after Beijing began lifting similar restrictions city-wide, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Monday.
“Chaoyang district — home to high-end shops, multinational firms and embassies — started a three-day testing drive for all its 3.5 million residents and sealed off several downtown residential compounds and malls over the weekend,” AFP reported on June 13.
Authorities in Chaoyang, Beijing’s most populous district, began imposing movement restrictions on the region on Thursday, June 9, according to China’s state-run Global Times.
“Chaoyang district … ordered all entertainment venues, fitness venues, and training institutions in basements to suspend operations from Thursday afternoon,” the newspaper reported on June 10.
Chaoyang district chose to lock down much of its populace after Beijing health authorities detected a new cluster of Chinese coronavirus infections in the area linked to a single club-goer who visited the local “Heaven Supermarket bar” before and after suffering a fever last week. The unidentified patent zero “has infected at least 183 people in 15 districts [of Beijing] so far,” AFP revealed on June 13.
Beijing Communist Party Chief Cai Qi, who leads the city’s anti-epidemic work, said on June 9 that he planned to order health inspections of “bars, KTVs [Karaoke bars], internet cafes and other locations [in Chaoyang], and suspend the operation of facilities where prevention and control measures are not fully implemented or ventilation does not meet guidelines,” as quoted by the Global Times.
Chaoyang’s latest epidemic “arrived with ferocious momentum and the difficulty of prevention and control is huge,” Beijing government spokesman Xu Hejian told reporters on June 12.
Beijing’s decision to lock down much of Chaoyang on June 9 came just three days after the district reopened its nightlife venues on June 6, according to CNBC. The government of Beijing announced on May 29 that a prior Chinese coronavirus lockdown across most of the city would begin lifting gradually as of that day. Beijing began sealing off various residential districts in late April, starting with Chaoyang, as part of its previous lockdown order.
“Students make up more than 30% of total cases, with clusters linked to six schools and two kindergartens in Chaoyang,” the Associated Press reported at the time.
“Also Thursday [April 28], residents of two housing compounds in Beijing’s Chaoyang district were ordered to stay inside and some clinics and businesses shut down,” the news agency noted.