Last Updated on June 13, 2020, 6:17 AM AST by Anthony Morris
Beijing has closed the city’s largest wholesale food market on Saturday after the discovery of seven new coronavirus cases in the past two days.
Seven cases of the novel coronavirus have so far been linked to the Xinfadi meat market, six of them had confirmed positive for the virus on Saturday, officials said.
Due to these seven new cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus, nine nearby schools and kindergartens have been closed.
The official Xinhua News Agency said that the Xinfadi market, which has around 4,000 tenants, would now be disinfected after the workers have tested positive for COVID-19 and the virus has been found in the environment.
The National Health Commission has said that six new cases were discovered and confirmed in Beijing on Friday.
Another case had been reported Thursday.
These new cases of the deadly disease are the first locally transmitted cases in the Chinese capital in over the past 50 days.
According to Chinese media reports, all the attention was focused on the market after the discovery of the first three cases. Two of the infected people had paid a visit to the market, and the third person had worked with one of them at a meat research institute.
The City officials said on late Friday that all the workers were being tested for the new coronavirus COVID-19 disease.
The officials also added that they had also ordered the testing of the food and the environmental samples from all the wholesale food markets in the Chinese capital, Beijing.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
