BEIJING: China imposed a strict lockdown on nearly half a million people near the capital to contain a fresh coronavirus outbreak on Sunday, as authorities warned it was soon to “relax” over the new cluster of cases.
After China largely brought the virus under control, hundreds have been infected in Beijing and cases have emerged in neighboring Hebei province.
Health officials said Sunday that Anxin county — about 150 kilometers from Beijing — will be “fully enclosed and controlled,” the same strict measures imposed at the height of the pandemic in the city of Wuhan earlier this year.
Now, only one person from each family will be allowed to go out once a day to purchase necessities such as food and medicine, the county’s epidemic prevention task force said in a statement.
Earlier the county had been subject to some travel restrictions, but now individuals are only allowed to leave their homes to seek medical treatment, the notice said.
The move comes after another 14 cases of the virus were reported in the past 24 hours in Beijing, taking the total to 311 since mid-June.
The outbreak was first detected in Beijing’s sprawling Xinfadi wholesale food market, which supplies much of the city’s fresh produce and sparked concerns over the safety of the food supply chain.
Businesses in Anxin county had supplied freshwater fish to the market, state news agency Xinhua reported.
Some 12 cases of the novel coronavirus were found in the area, including 11 linked to Xinfadi market, the state-run Global Times reported.
The new cases in Beijing have prompted fears of a resurgence of the virus in China.
The capital has mass-tested wholesale market workers, restaurant workers, residents of medium and high-risk neighborhoods and delivery couriers over the past week.
Testing has now expanded to include all employees of the city’s beauty parlors and hair salons, the Global Times said.
Beijing city official Xu Hejian told reporters Saturday: “There is no room for us to relax.”
City officials have urged people not to leave the city, closed schools again and locked down dozens of residential compounds to stamp out the virus.
But Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiology expert at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters last week the new outbreak had been “brought under control,” and officials lifted a weeks-long lockdown imposed on seven communities in Beijing on Friday.
Half a million in lockdown as Beijing fights new coronavirus cluster
https://arab.news/r9pgb
Half a million in lockdown as Beijing fights new coronavirus cluster
- Only one person from each family will be allowed to go out once a day to purchase necessities
- Move comes after another 14 cases of the virus were reported in the past 24 hours in Beijing
France honors fallen soldiers in Afghanistan after Trump’s false claim about NATO troops
- In an interview with Fox Business Network in Davos, Switzerland, Trump on Thursday claimed that non-US NATO troops stayed “a little off the frontlines” in Afghanistan
PARIS: A senior French government official said Monday the memory of the French soldiers who died in Afghanistan should not be tarnished following US President Donald Trump’s false assertion that troops from non-US NATO countries avoided the front line during that war.
Alice Rufo, the minister delegate at the Defense Ministry, laid a wreath at a monument in downtown Paris dedicated to those who died for France in overseas operations. Speaking to reporters, Rufo said the ceremony had not been planned until the weekend, adding that it was crucial to show that “we do not accept that their memory be insulted.”
In October 2001, nearly a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, the US led an international coalition in Afghanistan to destroy Al-Qaeda, which had used the country as its base, and the group’s Taliban hosts.
Alongside the US were troops from dozens of countries, including from NATO, whose mutual-defense mandate had been triggered for the first time after the attacks on New York and Washington. In an interview with Fox Business Network in Davos, Switzerland, Trump on Thursday claimed that non-US NATO troops stayed “a little off the frontlines” in Afghanistan.
Ninety French soldiers died in the conflict.
“At such a moment, it is symbolically important to be there for their families, for their memory, and to remind everyone of the sacrifice they made on the front line,” Rufo said.
After his comments caused an outcry, Trump appeared to backpedal and heaped praise on the British soldiers who fought in Afghanistan. He had no words for other troops, though.
“I have seen the statements, in particular from veterans’ associations, their outrage, their anger, and their sadness,” Rufo said, adding that trans-Atlantic solidarity should prevail over polemics.
“You know, there is a brotherhood of arms between Americans, Britons, and French soldiers when we go into combat.”
