Beijing asks its residents to stay for the holidays

Beijing (AFP) – Beijing urged residents not to leave the city during the Lunar New Year holiday in February, and imposed new restrictions after several cases of the Coronavirus last week.

Two local cases were reported on Friday, a store worker and employee of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Two more asymptomatic cases were discovered in Beijing earlier in the week.

Beijing is conducting small-scale testing in neighborhoods and workplaces where the cases have been found.

To contain any new outbreak, the Beijing government has canceled large gatherings such as sporting events and temple fairs. It says requests will be subject to strict review of any major events. The government has said cinemas, libraries and museums should be 75% operational.

It also called on companies not to arrange business trips outside and outside the city.

The Lunar New Year is February 12th.

Separately, officials in the northeastern port city of Dalian said on Friday that they had tested more than 4.75 million people for the coronavirus after 24 confirmed infections this month.

Authorities have closed schools and all public spaces in five Dalian neighborhoods, and only essential workers can leave their compounds to go to work.

Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region:

– The Japanese Ministry of Health said on Saturday that it had confirmed a different type of coronavirus that had spread across Britain in two Tokyo residents – the first two cases of the new type were found outside Japanese airports. The ministry said in a statement that a man in his 30s tested positive for the new variant on Saturday after returning from Britain on December 16. The second patient is a woman in her twenties, who is related to the man. This confirmation comes a day after the ministry announced that it had detected the first cases of the variable in five returnees from Britain who had tested positive for the virus upon their arrival at Japanese airports between December 18 and December 21. On Saturday, Tokyo confirmed 949 new cases. Coronavirus, a record high for the Japanese capital, as the country struggles with a nationwide boom. The Tokyo metropolitan government said that the additional cases bring the total number of prefectures to 55,851. The Japanese Ministry of Health said that Japan recorded 3823 new cases on Friday, bringing the total number of injuries to 213547 deaths, with 3,155 deaths.

– South Korea reported another 1,132 coronavirus cases as the resurgence worsened during Christmas week, adding to pressure on the government to impose tougher social distancing controls. On Saturday, the figures brought the number of cases in the country to 55,902, with 793 deaths. About 780 of the new cases were from the greater metropolitan area, which includes 26 million people, as health workers discovered a large group in a huge prison in Seoul that houses more than 500 prisoners and workers. In recent weeks, infections have been linked to hospitals, nursing homes, churches, restaurants and army units. After months of complacency, government officials have reinstated some distance restrictions in recent weeks after easing them to their lowest level in October, and are now cracking down on private gatherings, shutting down ski resorts, restricting hotel occupancy, and imposing fines on restaurants if They accept large groups. The government will hold a meeting on Sunday to determine whether to lift the divergence controls to the higher „Level 3“, which could lead to hundreds of thousands of non-core businesses being closed. Officials have resisted such a measure for weeks, saying it could release more shocks to an already weak economy.

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