China’s capital is deploying an increasingly hardcore playbook to contain its nascent Covid-19 outbreak, from repeat testing of most residents to barring access to public places without a negative result as it seeks to avoid the chaos seen in Shanghai.
Beijing has never been locked down at any time in the pandemic, and authorities are aware of the message it would send if the city was forced to curtail peoples’ movements. To avoid the fate of Shanghaiofficials are deploying tougher measures earlier. Residents of Beijing’s main districts have already undergone multiple rounds of mass testing, aimed at rooting out unknown chains of transmission and cases before they become symptomatic.
Some restaurants set up tables in their doorways to serve takeaway food after dining in was banned. One coffee shop put stools outside to allow people to enjoy a drink under the shade of trees, only for police to later arrive to disperse the crowd. A makeshift hospital that will be used to isolate mild Covid cases was reopened on Sunday, the state-runnewspaper reported. As part of its strategy pioneered during its first Covid wave in Wuhan, China quarantines all infected people and their close contacts to quell transmission. While successful early on in the pandemic, it’s proven increasingly difficult to execute with bigger and more consistent virus waves driven by more contagious variants like omicron.