Beijing on high COVID-19 alert after May Day holidays end
May 05, 2022
Beijing [China], May 5 : China's capital city Beijing is on a high COVID-19 alert to contain the spread of the virus as the city resumed work on Thursday following a five-day-long Labour Day holiday.
At least 50 new cases of infection were reported in Beijing on Wednesday while Shanghai confirmed more than 4,000 new infections. It also reported 13 deaths, taking the city's total COVID death toll since April to 500.
On Thursday, the city resumed business operations, however, in central Beijing, people are asked to work from home. The Beijing municipal authorities have asked the people to provide proof of a negative Covid test to enter public venues, NHK World reported.
Further, in a major escalation of COVID-19 restrictions amid a surge in Omicron variant cases, Beijing has banned all restaurant dining and shut down universal studios. More than 60 subway stations have been ordered to shut down.
Throughout the city, the authorities suspended the bus services and around 160 regular routes the buses were changed, NHK World reported.
The report further said that the students of elementary, junior high and senior high schools would be given online classes from now on.
China on Thursday reported a total of 360 locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, of which 261 were reported solely in Shanghai.
Meanwhile, as the COVID-19 outbreak continues to spread in more and more cities in China, questions are mounting over the country's much-publicized "zero-covid" strategy that the government credited for bringing the country out of the pandemic.
