BEIJING (AP) – Beijing has urged residents not to leave the city during the Lunar New Year holiday in February, implementing new restrictions after several coronavirus infections last week.
Two domestic cases were reported on Friday, a convenience store employee and a Hewlett Packard Enterprise employee. Two other asymptomatic cases were discovered in Beijing earlier this week.
Beijing is conducting tests on a limited scale in the neighborhoods and workplaces where the cases were found.
To contain any new outbreaks, the Beijing government has canceled major meetings, such as sporting events and temple fairs. He says that registrations will be strictly analyzed for any important events. Places like cinemas, libraries and museums are expected to operate at 75% capacity, the government said.
He also asked companies not to organize business trips outside the city and abroad.
The Lunar New Year is February 12th.
Separately, officials in the northeastern port city of Dalian said on Friday that they tested 4.75 million people for coronavirus after 24 confirmed infections this month.
Authorities have closed schools and all public spaces in five neighborhood divisions in Dalian, and only essential workers can leave their complexes to work.
Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region:
– Japan’s Ministry of Health said on Saturday it had confirmed a variant of the coronavirus that spread across Britain to two Tokyo residents – the first two cases of the new variant found outside Japanese airports. A man in his 30s tested positive for the new variant on Saturday after returning from Britain on December 16, the ministry said in a statement. A second patient is a woman in her 20s who is related to the man. The confirmation came a day after the ministry said it detected the first cases of the variant in five returnees from Britain who tested positive when they arrived at Japanese airports between 18 and 21 December. Also on Saturday, Tokyo confirmed 949 new cases of the coronavirus, a record for the Japanese capital, as the country fights an outbreak that is spreading across the country. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government said the additional cases bring the province’s total to 55,851. Japan had 3,823 new cases on Friday for a national total of 213,547, with 3,155 deaths, the health ministry said.
– South Korea reported another 1,132 cases of coronavirus as the resurgence worsened during Christmas week, putting pressure on the government to impose stricter controls on social distance. The numbers on Saturday raised the number of cases in the country to 55,902, with 793 deaths. About 780 of the new cases were from the big capital area, where 26 million people live, where health professionals discovered a large crowd in a huge Seoul prison with more than 500 inmates and workers. Broadcasts in recent weeks have also been linked to hospitals, nursing homes, churches, restaurants and army units. After months of complacency, government officials have restored some distance restrictions in recent weeks after opening them to the lowest level in October and are now restricting private meetings, closing ski resorts, restricting hotel occupancy and setting fines for restaurants if they accept large groups. The government will hold a meeting on Sunday to determine whether to raise distance controls to the highest “Tier-3”, which could close hundreds of thousands of non-essential deals. The authorities resisted such action for weeks, saying it could trigger further shocks on an already weak economy.
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