Beijing tells residents to avoid traveling outside city

Residents in Beijing should not go out of the city when it's not absolutely necessary, the municipal government announced on Monday as the capital strengthened the measures on epidemic control and prevention.

Xu Hejian, spokesperson of the municipal government, said at a news conference on Monday afternoon that Beijing is facing the increasing pressure of the epidemic risks and will continue to take all measures to contain the epidemic.

"People who come back to Beijing and work at major areas and industries should take nucleic acid testing immediately after arrival and go back to work only after receiving negative results," Xu said.

People from the counties where one or more local cases have been reported in the past 14 days should not come to Beijing unless absolutely necessary. Those who need to come to Beijing must bring a green health code and negative nucleic acid testing result within 48 hours. And they should follow a 14-day health monitoring after arrival in the city.

The airports, rail stations and inter-city bus stations should strictly check health code of all the people arriving in Beijing. Two cities in neighboring Hebei province - Zhuozhou and Laishui asked their residents to show work certificate, negative nucleic acid testing results, green codes for health and track to enter Beijing via highways, starting Monday.

Beijing has encouraged all conferences and forums to be postponed or held online. Beijing marathon race, which was previously scheduled to be held on Oct 31, has been postponed.

Beijing reported two new locally transmitted cases between 4 pm Sunday noontime and 3 pm Monday. Both of the two new cases have been to Inner Mongolia autonomous region in October, according to Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The residential community in Changping district where the two cases live was raised to medium-risk level of COVID-19 control and prevention starting Monday, announced Pang.

Last week, Beijing raised a residential community in Changping to high-risk level of COVID-19 control and prevention as six locally transmitted cases were reported from the area.

By now, Beijing has one high-risk and one medium-risk level communities in the city. The rest are low-risk areas.