BEIJING —
Beijing city officials on Sunday
said all two million residents of a neighborhood where a small cluster of
coronavirus cases was detected will be tested, less than two weeks before the
start of the
Winter Olympics.
اضافة اعلان
China’s cases
constitute a tiny fraction of the massive surge in countries around the globe,
with the highly contagious Omicron variant driving a fresh spike in infections.
Still, multiple small outbreaks around China —
including in Beijing — have tested its strict “zero COVID” policy, which
authorities have pursued even as the rest of the world has gradually reopened.
Local authorities have identified Fengtai district
in southern Beijing as the epicenter of a cluster, with the number of cases in
the capital totaling 43.
All two million of the area’s residents will be
tested for the virus on Sunday, officials said, and people from high-risk areas
are banned from leaving the city.
“We must make every effort to stop the spread as
quickly as possible by taking firm, strict and decisive measures,” Xu Hejian,
spokesman for the Beijing municipal government, said at a briefing.
Fengtai is about 20km from the Winter Olympics
freestyle skiing and snowboarding venue.
With the Beijing Games starting on February 4,
international delegates, media personnel, and some athletes have already begun
arriving.
In an effort to thwart the coronavirus, China is
sealing the Olympics inside a tightly controlled bubble cocooning thousands of
people and stretching nearly 200km.
The testing announcement came days after China’s
postal service ordered workers to disinfect international deliveries after
authorities claimed mail could be the source of recent coronavirus cases.
Both the
World Health Organization and the US Centers for
Disease Control have said the risk of being infected from contaminated surfaces
is low.
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