A Chinese official has warned that the epidemiological situation in the Chinese capital is "very serious" at a time when more than 8 million people infected with the emerging coronavirus around the world, more than half of them in Europe and the United States.
Zhu Hejian, a spokesman for the Beijing mayor, told reporters on Tuesday that the city was "racing against time" against the virus.
The municipality spokesman added that the capital "must take the most firm and strict measures."
And the city - which has a population of 21 million people - raised the number of tests it conducted to detect the virus, to more than 90 thousand tests per day.
While the renewed epidemic raises fears of a "second wave", the World Health Organization announced on Monday that it is "closely" following the situation in Beijing, speaking about the possibility of sending additional experts in the coming days.
On Tuesday morning, Beijing announced 27 new infections in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of cases recorded five days ago to 106.
The outbreak began in the wholesale food market of ChinaVade, one of the largest in Asia, where the virus was detected last week.
Since then, four other markets in the capital have been closed, in whole or in part, and quarantined about 30 neighboring residential areas.
Primary and secondary school students can now resume lessons from home.
Quarantine in other cities
And in the rest of China, cities have announced that expatriates from the capital are being quarantined.
A Shanghai city official said today that the authorities have decided to place all comers to the city from moderate to severe areas in relation to Covid-19 for a period of 14 days.
The resurgence of infections comes at a time when the country, in which the Covid-19 epidemic appeared for the first time at the end of last year, was able to eradicate the disease in practice in recent months.
According to official figures, China has counted 83,221 injuries, including 4,634 deaths. No deaths were announced a month ago.
A map of the global spread of the epidemic
; The number of newly infected Coronavirus around the world has exceeded 8 million, more than half of them in Europe and the United States.
Since the Covid-19 epidemic first appeared in China in December, 8 million, 118,671 confirmed laboratory cases of the virus have been recorded, including 439,198 deaths, while 4 million, 216,319 people have recovered from the virus, according to the WorldMeter website.
The number of infections in Europe, the continent most affected by the epidemic, reached two million and 417 thousand and 902 injuries (including 188 thousand and 85 deaths). In the United States, the country worst affected by the epidemic, two million 110,182 cases were recorded (116,181 deaths).
The United States remains at the forefront with the largest number of injuries, amounting to nearly two million, or 25% of all reported cases. However, the disease is spreading faster in Latin America, which now accounts for 21% of all cases, according to Reuters statistics.
In total, 80,505 people died in Latin America and the Caribbean with Covid-19, including 43,959 in Brazil, the second most recorded country of epidemic deaths with a population of 212 million.
The death toll of Covid-19 infections in Latin America and the Caribbean also increased to 1,681,378.
The number of people infected with the virus in Brazil alone reached 888 thousand and 271 infected, which is more than the number of infections recorded in the entire continent of Asia.
As for Mexico - which has a population of 120 million people and the second largest country in Latin America recording deaths from the virus - it recorded 146 thousand and 937 infections, including 17 thousand and 141 deaths.
Return of the virus to New Zealand
Health authorities said on Tuesday that it had registered two new cases of the emerging coronavirus from the United Kingdom, ending a period of 24 days without discovering any new cases in the country.
The authorities lifted all social and economic restrictions except for border controls last week, after they announced that they had no new or active cases of the Coronavirus, one of the first countries to return to normalcy that had been before the outbreak of the pandemic.