Beijing Capital International Airport

Portrait for @ash
by @ash
2020-06-17T10:30:02+00:00
Politics • Asian • China
Beijing closes schools and cancels flights amid rising Covid-19 cases
People, who had been in contact with the Xinfadi Wholesale Market waiting in line for nucleic acid testing at a Chinese epidemic control testing site at Beixiaguan Street, Haidian District, June 16, 2020
People, who had been in contact with the Xinfadi Wholesale Market waiting in line for nucleic acid testing at a Chinese epidemic control testing site at Beixiaguan Street, Haidian District, June 16, 2020 Credit: 舞月書生 / CC BY-SA (Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0)

Beijing's health alert has been raised to the second-highest level on Tuesday after medical authorities have confirmed 106 new Covid-19 cases since last week. In response, the city has closed schools and Beijing Airport has cancelled over 1,200 flights in an effort to contain a second outbreak. A new cluster of cases is believed to have its origin in the Xinfadi wholesale food market and almost 30 residential compounds have been put under quarantine. Beijing reported 31 new cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday.