Beijing's food market COVID-19 spread 'basically controlled'

Beijing's recent COVID-19 infections related to the Xinfadi food market is "basically under control," a municipal official said on Wednesday.

Xu Hejian, spokesperson for the Beijing municipal government, told a press conference that the Chinese capital still faced a "complicated epidemic situation" with discoveries of family and workplace clusters, and sporadic in-community cases.

According to the Beijing Municipal Health Commission, of the city's 256 newly confirmed cases, 253 were related to the Xinfadi market clusters, while three other cases were still under scrutiny.

Only 10 of the 256 cases were patients in serious or critical conditions, a low proportion compared with confirmed cases before March 31 on the Chinese mainland, said the commission head, Lei Haichao, at the press conference.

From June 11 to 23, Beijing reported 256 confirmed domestically transmitted cases. Before that, the city had observed 57 days without reports of locally transmitted cases.

Beijing reported seven new confirmed domestically transmitted cases, four suspected cases, and one asymptomatic case on Tuesday, the municipal health commission said on Wednesday.