Transport into Beijing cut to guard capital ‘at all costs’ against Covid-19 surge

More than 350 people in 27 cities have been infected with the highly transmissible Delta strain in latest outbreak, including seven in Wuhan on Monday
Four cases reported in the capital, where authorities have barred anyone from medium- and high-risk areas from entering

Coronavirus China

Zhuang Pinghuiin Beijing

Published: 3:43pm, 2 Aug 2021

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Despite the high coronavirus vaccination rate in Beijing, some flights, trains and buses to the Chinese capital have been cancelled and other control measures stepped up to stop an outbreak of the Covid-19 Delta variant spreading through the city.

Tighter control came as the country faced its biggest challenge since first containing the virus early last year. More than 350 people in 27 mainland cities have been infected, including confirmation on Monday afternoon of seven infections in the central city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected. The cases add to an outbreak that has grown since the more transmissible Delta strain was first detected in nine cleaners at Nanjing airport in eastern Jiangsu province on July 20.

In China, more than 1.66 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines had been administered by Sunday, still a long way from reaching an immunity barrier for the 1.4 billion population.

Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan spent four days from July 29 in Jiangsu – where 215 symptomatic Covid-19 cases were reported by Monday – to supervise epidemic control measures, including infection source tracing, coronavirus testing and materials supply in sealed-off residential areas, according to state news agency Xinhua.

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Sun’s visit signalled the severity of the epidemic after she took similar trips for some outbreaks – such as those in Xinjiang, Jilin and Harbin – last year but not others, such as the community spread of the Delta variant in May. Her trip came after two deputy ministers went separately to Nanjing last month to help with epidemic control.

She told officials and experts in the province that preventing outbreaks from imported cases was always the top epidemic control priority and should not be relaxed “even for one moment”.

“All departments must perform their duties and everyone fulfil the obligation of taking responsibility and implementing relevant policies,” Sun said, urging that epidemic control be handled in a “very strict” manner.

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The chairman of Nanjing’s Lukou International Airport was removed from his post on July 23 after airport mismanagement was deemed responsible for cleaners catching Covid-19 from a cargo flight in Russia on July 10 and subsequently spreading the virus to other staff and passengers and to residents in inland cities who had no connection with the airport.

Beijing, with 17.9 million fully vaccinated people, or 82 per cent of its total population, remains on high alert as more cities have reported cases linked to Nanjing. As a top travel destination during the summer holidays, Beijing is also considered at high risk of importing cases from elsewhere.

Four cases have been reported in Beijing so far, all of them with links to the Zhangjiajie outbreak – in the central province of Hunan – which has closed to visitors after becoming another Covid-19 hotspot because of infected arrivals from Nanjing.

Beijing must be “guarded at all costs” with the fastest, strictest measures and most decisive actions, according to a meeting on Sunday chaired by Beijing Communist Party secretary Cai Qi.

Beijing party chief Cai Qi says the capital must be “guarded at all costs”. Photo: Simon Song

To guard against more imported cases, authorities at the Beijing municipal meeting agreed to step up control measures on people from medium- and high-risk areas – usually defined at the district neighbourhood level – from entering the capital.

Anyone from a city with cases identified has been banned from entering Beijing and flights, trains and long-haul buses from those places have been halted. A search of booking sites on Monday showed tickets for trains from outbreak areas such as Nanjing and Zhangjiajie were unavailable.

Employees of government agencies and state-owned enterprises have also been banned from travelling to affected cities and agencies must not organise travel for them. Anyone from Beijing who is in one of these cities will not be able to return until they have completed 14 days of health monitoring and a negative coronavirus test 48 hours before boarding a flight or train.

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Authorities at the meeting also decided that people already in Beijing from cities with medium- and high-risk areas will be tested and their health monitored to “ensure no one is missed”.

The outbreak in Nanjing has expanded so far that some large outbreaks were caused by people who have never been to the Nanjing airport.

The outbreak in Wuhan was linked to a worker who waited for a train in Jingzhou, Hubei, with a tourist group from Huaian, Jiangsu. The group were infected after spending several days in Zhangjiajie.

Nanjing on Sunday ordered that clinics and outpatient care with a high risk of exposure be suspended, including ear, mouth and throat services, dentistry and plastic surgery.

Nanjing’s neighbour Yangzhou reported 56 symptomatic cases on Monday, mostly in a cluster that has been traced to an elderly woman who had travelled to the city from Nanjing and visited several mahjong parlours before she tested positive on Wednesday.

Yangzhou authorities have offered a 5,000 yuan (US$775) reward for tip-offs about people who may have been at the mahjong parlours last week or those who may have travelled to the city from medium- or high-risk areas and could have been missed by the control measures.

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Jiangsu governor Wu Zhenglong visited Yangzhou on Sunday, saying the situation in the city had “yet to hit the bottom” and posed a severe and complicated challenge.

Elsewhere in China, authorities have stepped up pandemic controls as the number of infections continues to rise. After three new cases and six asymptomatic infections were reported on Sunday, Zhuzhou in Hunan issued a three-day stay-at-home order for the city’s 1.2 million residents excluding essential workers starting on Monday.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Links to capital cut in bid to keep coronavirus out