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Coronavirus: Beijing steps up health checks on people arriving in city ahead of Winter Games
- ‘More rigorous checks’ announced weeks before the event as authorities try to stop the spread of Covid-19 to the capital
- It comes as the northeastern city of Dalian reports its first Omicron infection, a person who had been in Tianjin
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Beijing has stepped up health checks on all inbound travellers as it tries to stop the spread of Covid-19 to the capital, weeks before it hosts the Winter Olympics.
The city’s Covid-19 prevention and control office on Wednesday said there would be “more rigorous checks” on arrivals to the city – who are required to show negative test results – but did not give further details.
It coincided with the discovery of a suspected case in Beijing’s southern Fengtai district. The person – a close contact of a Tianjin resident – later tested negative but it highlighted the challenges Beijing is facing in hosting the Games while keeping to its strict zero-Covid strategy.
The northern port city of Tianjin is just 30 minutes by train from Beijing and has been battling an outbreak involving the highly transmissible Omicron variant since early January. Another 41 locally acquired cases were reported in Tianjin on Thursday, taking the total in the outbreak to 126, the National Health Commission said.
Beijing is not taking any chances ahead of the Winter Olympics that begin on February 4, with measures including a “closed loop” system separating athletes and people taking part in the Games from residents.
But Games organisers on Tuesday said there was no plan to lock down the capital and that the small number of Omicron cases detected in China were “under control”.
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