Medical expert: Beijing outbreak under control
Print Edition
BEIJING has brought its latest coronavirus outbreak under control, a Chinese medical expert said yesterday, although the capital can still expect sporadic new cases.
The city has recorded 158 infections since confirming the first one on June 11 in its worst outbreak since early February, which has been traced to the sprawling wholesale food center of Xinfadi in its southwest.
Despite just a few cases compared to numbers outside China, authorities have acted quickly to curb contagion risks in the capital. A mere few days after the first case, the city returned to a level two alert, the second-highest in a four-tier virus emergency response system, leading to new curbs on residents’ movements.
“The epidemic in Beijing has been brought under control,” said Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist of China’s Center for Diseases Prevention and Control, yesterday.
Going by recent case numbers, June 13 was the peak of the current outbreak, Wu said a day after new confirmed cases fell to 21 on Wednesday from 31.
“When I say that it’s under control, that doesn’t mean the number of cases will turn zero tomorrow or the day after,” he warned. “The trend will persist for a period of time, but the number of cases will decrease, just like the trend that we saw (in Beijing) in January and February.”
Beijing reported a total of eight COVID-19 cluster infections related to the Xinfadi wholesale farm produce market by the end of Wednesday, local health authority said yesterday.
While Beijing has not been placed under a strict lockdown for all, as imposed in the central city of Wuhan, the Chinese capital has imposed tough travel curbs.
Residents of 32 neighborhoods designated medium-risk and one area deemed high-risk have been barred from leaving the city, while residents of low-risk areas must show proof of negative disease tests in order to leave the city.
Air and land transport services have been curbed. Other provinces and cities, including Shanghai, are subjecting arrivals from Beijing to days of quarantine, effectively deterring travelers.
In the past week, the provinces of Hebei, Liaoning, Sichuan and Zhejiang have reported a handful of cases linked to the Xinfadi cluster. Hebei Province yesterday reported two new cases, both of whom worked in Beijing’s Xinfadi market.
Wu also said research has found the trading sections for meat and seafood in Beijing’s wholesale food market to be severely contaminated with the new coronavirus and suspects the area’s low temperature and high humidity may have been contributing factors.
Among the infected people who worked at the Xinfadi market, most served at seafood and aquatic product stalls, followed by the beef and mutton section. People from the seafood market showed symptoms earlier than others.
China’s CDC said it has successfully isolated and cultured the novel coronavirus from the recent clusters in Beijing.
On June 11 and 13, the National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention under the CDC received two batches of respiratory tract samples.
On Monday, cytopathy was seen in the cells inoculated with the virus, and results of nucleic acid tests showed rapid amplification of the virus, which signified the success of the isolated culture of the virus, according to the CDC.
The success is significant to the study on the sequence characterization of the circulating viral strain in the recent COVID-19 cases in Beijing, as well as the evaluation of vaccines and the selection of medicine concerning the epidemic, the CDC said.
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