Authorities in Beijing ordered the switch to online classes for several schools in the city and locked down a number of residential compounds and offices as the number of new Covid-19 infections in the city continued to inch upwards.
People are waiting in line for a test at a business center.
Beijing reported 50 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, up from 34 the day before.
Most students in Beijing's most populous district were switched to online learning on Thursday, allowing exceptions for middle and high school students who were preparing for important exams.
According to the Associated Press, more than 30% of the nearly 160 cases detected in Beijing since last week have been linked to clusters in six schools and two kindergartens.
Beijing has locked down several residential compounds in the city where cases have been detected, along with office blocks and a university.
The city is conducting three rounds of mass testing on its population of over twenty million people.
13,562 new cases and 47 deaths were reported on Thursday by the city of Shanghai, which has been under strict Pandemic restrictions for over a month.
169. The total number of cases reported by Beijing since Saturday is that. There are concerns that the situation may quickly get out of control like it did in Shanghai, which is why the size of the outbreak is relatively small. The Chinese financial hub reported fewer than 100 infections a day in early March, but by March 20 they had reported more than 27,000 infections.
The first of three rounds of mass testing for Beijing's residents began this week after officials warned that the virus had been undetected in the city. The city has rushed to carry out mass testing early in the outbreak to make sure it doesn't face the same fate as Shanghai. The country's current outbreak has been caused by the highly infectious BA.2 Omicron variant of the coronaviruses. Despite the approach causing economic pain and public anger, officials in China have vowed to stick to it.
On Wednesday, officials in Shanghai outlined their plan to tackle the city's ongoing outbreak, saying they are seeking to achieve "societal zero Covid", where new cases are only detected among people who are already under quark. They think this will help reduce the risk of undetected clusters across the city and allow officials to end the lockdown in areas with zero spread.
Beijing expands covid mass testing to nearly 20 million residents.
Beijing classes are going online in tighter rules.
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