Beijing Residential Areas Go on Lockdown After Fresh Virus Cluster is Discovered

EDIT: A Shanghai city official announced on Tuesday that the city will quarantine all those entering from mid to high-risk COVID-19 areas in China for 14 days, reported Reuters. In addition, the country has halted imports from European salmon suppliers.

EDIT: China has locked down 10 additional neighborhoods, reports AFP. 75 cases have now been linked to the Xinfadi market.

Areas of Beijing were placed under lockdown on Saturday after six new COVID-19 cases were reported in the city, reported AFP.  The cases were linked to a local market called Xinfadi.

RELATED: SINGAPORE HAS MANAGED TO STAY LOCKDOWN-FREE UNTIL NOW 

People were then forbidden from leaving their homes in 11 residential estates in south Beijing’s Fengtai district that are near to the market. In good news, it was revealed Chinese health experts believe sporadic cases are to be expected as the epidemic has not ended, but a resurgence is unlikely as the city's inhabitants are aware of precautions, reported the Global Times.

The city announced its first COVID-19 case in two months on Thursday. The carrier had visited Xinfadi meat market last week and had no recent travel history outside the city that could account for the infection.

The six new domestic cases announced on Saturday included three Xinfadi market workers, one market visitor, and two employees at the China Meat Research Centre. This center is seven kilometers (four miles) away from the Xinfadi market and one of its employees had visited the market last week.

The Xinfadi market along with another seafood market visited by one of the carriers have now been closed. They will both undergo disinfection and sample collection.

Officials of Beijing's southwestern Fengtai district told a briefing on Saturday that the district was in "wartime emergency mode," reported France 24. They added that throat swabs were taken from 517 people at the market and 45 had tested positive. 

None of them, however, showed any symptoms yet. In the meantime, the chairman of the Xinfadi market told state-run Beijing News that the virus was found on chopping boards used to cut salmon.

This raised fears over the security of Beijing’s food supply and saw supermarkets rush to remove all salmon stocks overnight. Time will tell whether these new cases are just sporadic or a reemergence of the virus.