Beijing tightens restrictions, Shanghai promises to lift blockade

While the capital Beijing of China After tightening restrictions to prevent and control COVID-19, Shanghai lifted the blockade order in some areas that did not record any positive cases within 48 hours.

Prior to that, the outbreak in Shanghai, which began in March, was China’s worst outbreak since the first months of the pandemic in 2020. Hundreds of thousands of people were reported results. positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the city began a blockade.

So far, it has been the 10th day Beijing faces the risk of a COVID-19 outbreak with dozens of positive cases per day. Since April 22, the capital has recorded more than 300 locally transmitted cases.

As of today, the capital Beijing has tightened regulations on social distancing and launched a large-scale testing in the city’s most populous district, which is also the hardest hit.

Over the past week, the city of 22 million people has carried out mass testing in most of its 16 counties, suspended all entertainment venues and banned restaurants.

Jia, the manager of a casual burger restaurant in Beijing, said that their shop loses 20,000 yuan (approximately 70 million dong) a day. “We have three branches in Shanghai and all of them have been closed without revenue for the past month. Now it’s the turn of the store in Beijing.”

Beijing’s Universal Studios theme park is officially closed as of today. Meanwhile, Badaling – home to the most visited section of the Great Wall – requires visitors to present a negative test result before entering the gate.

Chaoyang District, the area with the largest infection rate during the outbreak in Beijing, has kicked off an additional round of mass testing. Accordingly, medical staff came knocking on door to door to remind people to get tested.

Much of Shanghai is still under “embargo,” but officials here say restrictions in some areas will be gradually eased after the city curbs the risk of COVID-19 infection. -19 in the community, excluding cases in the isolation center.

The NDTV media unit quoted a senior city government official Gu Honghui as saying that six of Shanghai’s 16 counties have achieved zero-COVID status, meaning three consecutive days without a positive case. any.

Although, the good news comes from the decrease in the number of cases, but Shanghai will still organize a round of PCR testing and rapid test for new antigens across the city from May 1 to May 7.

Excluding imported cases, China reported 8,256 COVID-19 infections and 38 local deaths on April 30, 2022, compared with 10,703 positive cases a day earlier. In which, Beijing recorded 59 cases, this number in Shanghai was 7,872.