COVID-19: Massive screening campaign and fear of confinement for millions of people in Beijing

The Chinese capital extends its screening campaign to twelve of its sixteen provinces. In Shanghai, 25 million inhabitants are always confined.

Le Monde with AFP

China has faced an epidemic flambé from COVVI-19 since March which has touched many provinces to various degrees. It responds to it with a zero covid strategy, which consists in particular in large -scale confinements and quarantines, as in Shanghai where the 25 million inhabitants of the city have been confined since the beginning of April in strict conditions. Many complain about difficulties in accessing food and sending positive people to quarantine centers to variable hygiene.

Beijing, where a hundred positive cases have been identified since last week, is not yet there, but the city continues, Tuesday, April 26, a large screening campaign. She called on most of her 22 million inhabitants to carry out three PCR tests this week, in twelve districts out of sixteen.

Monday, residents and employees of the Chaoyang district, the most populous in the city, sits many multinationals, offices, embassies and shopping centers, had been the first to start this general screening campaign. Eleven new districts began to test their inhabitants on Tuesday. 2>

Supermarkets taken by storm

Shanghai’s example, the Beijing, the Beijing storms supermarkets and online platforms for sale of fresh products to increase their food stocks, in fear of a containment always possible. No food shortage is observed for the moment.

In Shanghai, 52 new deaths from COVID-19 and nearly 17,000 positive cases over twenty-four hours were still announced on Tuesday by the Ministry of Health. And in Beijing, 33 new positive cases were identified, an increase compared to previous days.

But the spokesperson for the town hall of Beijing, Xu Hejian, said, Monday evening, that the progression of the virus was still “under control”.