Several public venues in Beijing closed amid COVID-19 surge

As coronavirus cases are surging in China's capital, several public venues are closed and sports events and extracurricular sports training are suspended in Beijing.

According to Global Times, the authority ordered officials to suspend sports events and extracurricular sports training.

Many public venues were also closed, including the National Center for the Performance Arts (NCPA), Global Times reported.

As per the Chinese media, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sports ordered to suspend all sports events, and extracurricular sports training activities from Tuesday to Saturday. It also asked sports venues to limit the number of visitors to avoid large scale gathering and to test some of their employees at least once a week.

The bureau also warned sports venues to disinfect fitness equipment and warned them against buying commodities from countries and places where the virus is rife.

Beijing People's Art Theatre in Dongcheng district said it cancelled all the performance scheduled between Tuesday and Saturday, it reported while adding that the Yonghegong Lama Temple in Dongcheng also announced it will close from Wednesday, reopening date remains to be decided.

Meanwhile, the Chinese mainland reported 1,908 new locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases and 52 more deaths in the past 24 hours, said the National Health Commission on Tuesday.

Of these local cases, 1,661 were reported while the rest of the cases were reported in 17 other provincial-level regions on the mainland, including 91 in Jiangxi, 44 in Jilin, and 32 in Beijing, Xinhua reported citing the commission.

The COVID-19 outbreak continues to spread in more and more cities in China, questions are mounting over the country's zero covid policy.

The country's much-publicized "zero-covid" strategy that the government credited for bringing the country out of the pandemic till recently is falling apart as the rapidly mounting cases are again forcing mass lockdowns like those seen in 2020.

Moreover, China's financial hub, Shanghai, has been facing the worst COVID-19 outbreak and has been desperately seeking medical care and basic supplies like food.

( With inputs from ANI )

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor