Beijing cancels flights, shuts schools over new outbreak
Published: 12:06 PM,Jun 17,2020 | EDITED : 01:05 AM,May 04,2024
A China Eastern Airlines Airbus A330 aircraft sits on the tarmac at Sydney International Airport in Australia
Beijing's airports cancelled two-thirds of all flights and schools in the Chinese capital were closed again on Wednesday as authorities rushed to contain a new coronavirus outbreak linked to a wholesale food market.
The 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.
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.
At least 1,255 scheduled flights were cancelled Wednesday morning, state-run People's Daily reported, nearly 70 percent of all trips to and from Beijing's main airports.
According to the Chinese flight-tracking database VariFlight, around two-thirds of inbound flights and more than half of outbound flights at Beijing Capital International Airport were cancelled on Wednesday, while three-quarters of outbound and more than two-thirds of inbound flights at the new Daxing International Airport were cancelled.
The outbreak had already forced authorities to announce a travel ban for residents of 'medium- or high-risk' areas of the city, while requiring all other residents to take nucleic acid tests in order to leave Beijing.
Meanwhile, several provinces were quarantining travellers from Beijing, where all schools -- which had mostly reopened -- have been ordered to close again and return to online classes.
'The epidemic situation in the capital is extremely severe,' Beijing city spokesman Xu Hejian warned Tuesday.
- Mass testing underway -