Beijing virus resurgence sickens 205 including child, infections spread to five provinces

A resurgence of the deadly new coronavirus in China’s capital Beijing, where more than 20 million live, has now raised the count to 205 patients and infected people have surfaced in five other Chinese provinces in rapid succession.

Food deliveries in high-risk area are now suspended.

It was Thursday June 11 that yet another infected patient was diagnosed by a Beijing hospital, just two days after the capital’s health officials delightedly assured there are no more infected people.

As of midnight Friday, the number of virus infected nationals has jumped to 205, including a 12-month child and a 56-year-old. Five provinces have 17 confirmed infected people, who are also linked to Beijing. These 17 virus patients include 11 in Hebei, which is near the coronavirus wracked province Hubei; three in Liaoning; one  in Sichuan, one in Zhejiang, and one in Henan.

On Tuesday, June 9, Beijing officials said the capital cleared all its locally-infected  coronavirus patients as the last patient was discharged from hospital on Monday, June 8. They said there are no locally-infected people for 57 days. But, there were 174 returning Chinese who were infected.

Officials  had spoken too soon — a cluster had surfaced in the massive wholesale vegetable, fruit and meat market named Xinfadi, in the Fengtai district. The market was shut down and officials  immediately pinned the blame on imported salmon, which raised eyebrows in exporting countries such as Chile and Norway. They were adamant there was no such evidence, and later, Beijing health officials backtracked and agreed there was indeed no evidence. Then they speculated the virus source was either the United States or Europe. None was conclusively established to be the case.

A Chinese Centre for Disease Control officials said there was no evidence related to salmon being the Beijing new coronavirus host. Not even the intermediate host.

A virologist at Tsinghua University, Cheng Gong, told the state-owned CCTV’s international propaganda arm CGTN, virus receptors do not exist in fish.

The WHO had said in a guidance on April 7, the “coronaviruses cannot multiply in food; they need an animal or human host to multiply’’.

This past Friday, the WHO said the Beijing coronavirus outbreak, “looks very much like it's of human origin.’’

Hong Kong's Centre for Food Safety tested 16 samples of imported salmon and cleared all.

By Monday, June 15, there were 36 more Chinese virus patients and the tally climbed to 79, and dozens of residential compounds were locked down. About 7,200 residential complexes came under watch.

Schools were shut and transport including buses and taxis were suspended. Virus tests were ordered for thousand of residents and wet market workers. The capital also sacked several officials in the Fengtai district, where the new cluster originated, for misconduct.

On Sunday, June 14, China's vice premier Sun Chunlan, admitted the risk of the new outbreak spreading was "very high.’’

Last week, state media reported that a 22-year-old man, who is believed to have cleaned frozen seafood was infected and in Tianjin, near Beijing.

This past Thursday, Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a briefing, the virus is under control, but said that “it’s contained does not mean there will be no more infections reported tomorrow,” said Wu. “New infections are only sporadic,’’ Wu said.