![\"beijing\"](\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/3cccad1453467ee5ebcaf66a3c9d635ff744e3e8.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nThe city reported 31 new cases on Wednesday while officials urged residents not to leave Beijing, with fears growing about a second wave of infections in China, which had largely brought its outbreak under control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tens of thousands of people linked to the new Beijing virus cluster — believed to have started in the sprawling Xinfadi wholesale food market — are being tested, with almost 30 residential compounds in the city now under lockdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least 1,255 scheduled flights were canceled Wednesday morning, state-run People’s Daily reported, nearly 70 percent of all trips to and from Beijing’s main airports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The outbreak had already forced authorities to announce a travel ban for residents of “medium- or high-risk” areas of the city while requiring other residents to take nucleic acid tests in order to leave Beijing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, several provinces were quarantining travelers from Beijing, where all schools — which had mostly reopened — have been ordered to close again and return to online classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The epidemic situation in the capital is extremely severe,” Beijing city spokesman Xu Hejian warned Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The city has now reported 137 infections over the last six days, with six new asymptomatic cases and three suspected cases on Wednesday, according to the municipal health commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An additional two domestic cases, one in neighboring Hebei province and another in Zhejiang, were reported by national authorities on Wednesday, while there were 11 imported cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Authorities have so far banned group sports, ordered people to wear masks in crowded enclosed spaces and suspended inter-provincial group tours in response to the outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Officials said that since May 30, more than 200,000 people had visited Xinfadi market, which supplies more than 70 percent of Beijing’s fruit and vegetables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than 8,000 workers there were tested and quarantined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Until the new outbreak, most of China’s recent cases were nationals returning from abroad as COVID-19 spread globally, and the government had all but declared victory against the disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that the virus strain found in the Beijing outbreak was a “major epidemic strain” in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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