China’s Capital Battles to Contain Virus Spread as Olympics Loom
- Beijing authorities reported nine new local cases on Saturday
- Two workers at cold storage plant among latest infections
A health worker tests a man for Covid-19 in Beijing.
Photographer: Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images
A Covid-19 cluster in China’s capital Beijing continues to grow and shows early signs of spreading to neighboring provinces, adding pressure on authorities to contain the outbreak two weeks before the official start of the Winter Olympic Games.
Beijing reported nine new local coronavirus infections on Saturday, bringing the total to 30 since a week earlier, according to a tally by official local media. The capital is emerging as the latest virus hotspot in China after health authorities scrambled to control omicron’s first domestic spread in Tianjin, near Beijing, and locked down Xi’an, a western Chinese city of 13 million, in the wake of a delta flareup.