Staff members of Beijing Public Transport hold signboards to remind passengers of showing green health QR codes to get on buses at a bus stop in Beijing, the capital of China, on May 17, 2022. Photo:Xinhua News Agency

A person who was infected by COVID-19 due to community transmission failed to report their symptoms, leading to five more infections, the Beijing government said at a news conference on Monday, noting that the city's epidemic prevention work cannot be treated lightly.

The infected person works on the same floor as another infected person who reported symptoms on June 11. The two people work adjacent to each other and share the toilet, according to local health authorities.

Moreover, the infected person continued to go to public places and did not report it to the community or the workplace after developing symptoms on June 14, resulting in failed early detection and subsequent community transmission risks. As of Monday, five more infections have been found due to this community transmission chain.

Eight new infections were reported in the city from 0:00 am on Sunday to 15:00 pm on Monday, including six cases in Changping district, and one case each in Fengtai and Chaoyang districts, local health officials said at the press conference on Monday, highlighting that one of the cases was due to community transmission.

A total of 377 COVID-19 cases were reported in Beijing from 0:00 am on June 9 to 15:00 pm on Monday, local health authorities noted.

A residential neighborhood in Changping district was upgraded from Monday to a medium-risk area after four local confirmed cases were reported in the past 14 days, local officials said on Monday.

Changping district will carry out a one-week inspection of epidemic prevention and control in public places, focusing on strengthening inspections in places such as markets and conducting nucleic acid tests in key areas for three consecutive days starting from Monday.

The infected people in this round of the epidemic in Beijing generally have mild symptoms and are mostly young people between the ages of 17-28, accounting for 73.9% of all infected patients, said city officials.

The local health authorities said they would continue to conduct in-depth and detailed sorting and screening of the risk locations and personnel of the Heaven Supermarket bar to ensure that the transmission chain of the bar-related outbreak is eliminated.

Global Times