Beijing curbs new cluster of infection, but fight against virus far from over

Beijing has contained the recent new cluster of COVID-19 cases but the fight is far from final success due to the complicated situation in nearby Hebei province and the ongoing global pandemic, said Xu Hejian, spokesman for the municipal government, at a news conference on Tuesday.

"Some cases have tested with a positive result in nucleic acid testing after 14 days, which has made prevention work even harder," he said.

Beijing reported one new local case on Monday, according to Pang Xinghuo, deputy head of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention at the news conference.

The case, a 46-year-old female, is a sanitation worker at the Jinma Industrial Park in Shunyi district, the epicenter of the new cluster in Beijing.

Zhi Xianwei, executive deputy head of the district, said by 11 am Tuesday, Shunyi had identified 2,378 close contacts of the previously confirmed cases and all of them are now under centralized medical observation.

Affected by the epidemic in the district, all primary and middle school students in Shunyi, except for final year students in junior and senior high, have started online classes to reduce infection risks.

So far, 395 sample collection spots in the city have collected 2.64 million nucleic acid testing samples since the new local cases occurred, which has helped prevent the virus from spreading.

Compared with sample collection work during the Xinfadi cluster in June last year, the efficiency of sample collection is 5 to 10 times better in the latest round of infection, according to the government.