Beijing on Friday kicked off a drive to test two million people in 48 hours as the city rushed to snuff out a new local cluster of cases believed to be linked to a more contagious virus variant.

Long queues snaked through the Chinese capital -- which reported 19 coronavirus cases in the past week -- as the mass testing campaign got under way in Dongcheng and Xicheng districts.

The two downtown districts include Tiananmen Square and several government ministry offices, and are home to around two million residents.

AFP saw one testing line stretch over 400 metres (1,300 feet), with around a thousand people waiting to be tested.

"I received the notification this morning and thought I'd come during lunch hour; but there are so many people here in line," one Dongcheng resident said.

Officials plan to complete the testing by Saturday, and with the Lunar New Year holiday looming -- typically a time when hundreds of millions travel across the country to visit families -- they are keen to avoid a fully fledged outbreak in Beijing.

Locals have complained about long wait times in freezing temperatures, with social media users Friday saying queues for tests were "unending" as residents braved the winter chill to get swabbed.

"I queued for three hours and finally got tested," one user said on China's Twitter-like Weibo platform.

The Xicheng district government said in a social media notice Friday that some of the confirmed cases had been into the area and there was an "increased risk" of infections.

Dongcheng district also put out a notice to say tests would be organised in batches over Friday and Saturday for both residents and workers.

A partial lockdown is already in place in the city's southern Daxing district, where five neighbourhoods have been ordered to remain indoors and all 1.6 million residents have been told not to leave the city.

Beijing's rush to test comes as China faces its highest number of cases in nearly a year, after coronavirus was first detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019.

Officials have said that some of the cases detected in Beijing are linked to a variant of the deadly pathogen that was first found in the UK and is believed to be more transmissible.

China reported 103 new Covid-19 infections Friday, including six domestic cases in Shanghai and three in Beijing.

The majority of cases were in the country's northeast.

China had largely brought the virus under control -- with fewer than 5,000 official deaths -- even as the rest of the world struggles with mounting caseloads and overburdened hospitals.

But a series of small, localised outbreaks has prompted a swift response from Chinese officials.

Too early to draw Covid origin conclusions: WHO
Geneva (AFP) Jan 22, 2021 - The World Health Organization said Friday it was too early to draw any conclusions from its mission to Wuhan as to whether the Covid-19 pandemic started in China.

A team of WHO experts arrived in Wuhan on January 14 to start probing the origins of the deadly coronavirus, more than a year after the first cases were detected in the central Chinese city.

They were whisked to a hotel to complete a two-week quarantine.

China is braced for the scrutiny the expert team of WHO scientists will bring to its virus narrative. Beijing has drip-fed the idea that the pandemic started outside of its borders.

"All hypotheses are on the table. And it is definitely too early to come to a conclusion of exactly where this virus started, either within or without China," said WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan.

"There are different... scientific observations in different parts of the world... all of that is very important, because it builds up a picture," he told a press conference in Geneva.

However, he added: "This is a big jigsaw puzzle and you cannot tell what the image says by looking at one piece in a 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzle."

The virus has killed more than two million people so far, infected tens of millions of others and hammered the global economy.

The WHO says establishing the pathway of the virus from animals to humans is essential to preventing future outbreaks.

It says the probe should rightly start where the first cases were discovered, and follow the trail of clues from there.

"Let's step back, let's follow the evidence, let's follow the science. Our team are on the ground, they are having a good experience working with our Chinese colleagues. We are working through the data," said Ryan.

"The data will lead us to the next phase of where we have to go next to look at the origins of this virus.

"It is too early to come to any conclusion, but we believe we are making some progress and we hope to continue to do so in the interest of public health in the future."

Related Links
Epidemics on Earth - Bird Flu, HIV/AIDS, Ebola

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Partial lockdown in Beijing as UK virus variant detected
Beijing (AFP) Jan 20, 2021
1.6 million residents were banned from leaving Beijing on Wednesday as two Covid-19 cases linked to a new UK virus variant were found in the Chinese capital. China has lauded its response to the pandemic, which emerged in the central city of Wuhan just over a year ago but has been broadly brought to heel, officially killing fewer than 5,000 Chinese people. Authorities have been swift to stamp out local clusters of cases with lockdowns, mass testing regimes and travel restrictions. With the L ... read more