NBC News:
NOTE – At the height of the epidemic, Beijing had FEWER THAN 1000 TOTAL CASES. Other countries have wondered how China did such a good job of exporting the disease to them. Now this …
BEIJING — The number of new coronavirus cases in a fresh outbreak in the Chinese capital of Beijing passed 100 Tuesday, according to health officials who have rushed to impose restrictions across the densely populated city.
The latest flare-up of COVID-19 cases alarmed Chinese authorities this week, who are clamoring to stop the spread after a cluster of new cases was linked to a wholesale food market in the southwest of Beijing. The first new case was confirmed June 11 — previously the city had gone 56 days without any new cases.
The sprawling Xinfadi market supplies Beijing with 80 percent of its food and is said to be the largest wholesale agricultural market in Asia.
Health officials said the structure of the virus detected there did not look like the strain that appeared in Beijing two months ago, with some linking it to imported salmon — possibly from Europe — after samples from cutting boards and counters from the market tested positive.
Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview with The People’s Daily, a state newspaper, on Monday that this was one theory being looked at, but that investigations were ongoing.
