A Beijing district official said on Saturday the district was in "wartime emergency mode" following a spike in novel coronavirus cases centered around a major wholesale market there.
Chu Junwei, an official of Beijing's Fengtai district, said at a briefing that throat swabs from 45 people, out of 517 tested at the district's Xinfadi market, had tested positive for the new coronavirus.
Beijing will suspend sports events and inter-provincial tourism, effective immediately, a city spokesman said at the same briefing. The spokesman said all six confirmed coronavirus patients in Beijing on Friday had visited the Xinfadi market.
Concerns on Second Wave
Concerns on a potential second wave of the coronavirus pandemic are growing, even though some countries have curbed its spread. The first COVID-19 case was reported in Wuhan's seafood market, the capital of central China's Hubei province, back in December.
Previously, Beijing officials paused beef and mutton trading at the Xinfadi market, along with closing other wholesale markets around the city.
Case Wise
China reported 11 new COVID-19 cases and seven asymptomatic cases on Friday, according to the national health authority's statement on Saturday. All six locally transmitted coronavirus cases were confirmed in Beijing.
A total of 1596 confirmed cases were reported from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Among them, there were 1108 cases in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (1060 cases discharged and 4 deaths), 45 cases in the Macau Special Administrative Region (45 cases discharged), and 443 cases in Taiwan (431 cases discharged and 7 deaths), according to the National Health Authority.
There are currently 7,651,175 confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide, with 425,869 global deaths and counting, more than 3,613,210 have recovered from the deadly disease so far.
