Beijing records 59 new locally transmitted confirmed cases

Beijing reported 59 new locally transmitted confirmed cases and eight asymptomatic carriers between 3 pm on Friday and 3 pm on Saturday, which means that the city's total infections hit 295 since April 22 and involve 13 districts, according to the Beijing CDC on Saturday.

"The gene sequencing of 107 samples from the patients show that the infections involved the Omicron variant and are part of two different transmission chains - one in Chaoyang district, which registered the most of the confirmed cases during the latest outbreak, and one in Fengtai district related to a hospital," said Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing CDC, at a news conference on Saturday afternoon.

"The gene sequencing is identical to the recent infection clusters outside Beijing, which spilled out to other parts of the country as well," she added.

Among the total infections, Chaoyang district registered 123 cases, followed by Fangshan district, which reported 72 cases by Saturday since April 22, according to Pang.

As of Saturday afternoon, Beijing had six high-risk areas and 23 medium-risk areas.