China's new coronavirus outbreak sees Beijing adopt 'wartime' measures as capital races to contain spread

By Nectar Gan, CNN / Updated 2:10 AM ET, Tue June 16, 2020

(CNN) Beijing is reintroducing strict lockdown measures and rolling out mass testing after a fresh cluster of novel coronavirus cases emerged from the city's largest wholesale food market, sparking fears of a resurgence of the deadly outbreak.

The outbreak has already spread to the provinces of Liaoning and Hebei, where a total of five new cases were found to be close contacts of patients in Beijing.

The sudden reemergence of the virus in Beijing, previously considered among the country's safest cities, has raised the prospect of a second wave of infections and the possible reintroduction of the types of sweeping lockdowns that had previously brought much of the country to a halt and hammered the economy.

At a meeting of the State Council, China's cabinet, late on Sunday, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said the risk of the latest outbreak spreading was "very high," citing the market's dense and highly mobile population, according to state news agency Xinhua.

"Wartime" measures

Fengtai district, where the Xinfadi market is located, announced Saturday the launch of a "wartime mechanism" and the establishment of a command center to curb the spread of the virus.

On social media, the Global Times, a nationalist tabloid run by the Chinese government, posted a video of paramilitary police officers donning face masks patrolling the market after it was closed down on Saturday.

Authorities imposed a lockdown on 11 residential compounds in the vicinity of the market, strictly prohibiting anyone from entering or leaving...

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