People stop at a checkpoint outside the Xinfadi wholesale food market district in Beijing today. Image: Mark Schiefelbein/AP/Press Association Images People stop at a checkpoint outside the Xinfadi wholesale food market district in Beijing today. Image: Mark Schiefelbein/AP/Press Association Images DOZENS OF PEOPLE tested positive for Covid-19 in Beijing as parts of the city were locked down today after the emergence of a new cluster linked to a wholesale food market.
But another 45 asymptomatic cases — which China counts separately — were detected after mass testing of nearly 2,000 workers at the market yesterday, city health official Pang Xinghuo later told reporters.Another worker tested positive at a farmers’ market in the city’s northwestern district of Haidian. They were a close contact of one of the confirmed cases linked to Xinfadi.
Among the six new domestic cases announced today were three Xinfadi market workers, one market visitor and two employees at the China Meat Research Centre, 7km away. One of the employees had visited the market last week. Workers were seen hauling several crates of seafood out of Jingshen seafood market, also in Fengtai district.Officials in Fengtai — which has more than two million residents — announced today that the district has established a “wartime mechanism” and “field command centre” to deal with the fresh wave.
Uh oh.