Bank official apologizes for new COVID cluster

Beijing reported a new COVID-19 cluster found in a workplace, which has led to 21 infections reported involving six districts as of 4 pm on Monday.

"The infections of the new cluster include 17 employees and the rest are their family members," Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said at a news conference on Monday afternoon.

"This cluster has a large scale and the confirmed cases visited a wide range of locations in the city, including Shunyi, Haidian, Fengtai, Chaoyang, Tongzhou and Changping districts, which has added uncertainty to the trend of Beijing's latest outbreak," she said.

According to Zhang Yanlin, deputy head of Shunyi district, the new cluster was mainly discovered in a data center of the Beijing Rural Commercial Bank in the district.

By Monday afternoon, the district has identified 915 close contacts of the new cases and all control measures have been taken. Up to 14 residential communities and the data center's office in Shunyi were designated as precautionary zones, he said.

Shunyi conducted three consecutive nucleic acid tests from Sunday to Tuesday. On Sunday, the district had completed tests for 1.2 million residents and all results were negative, Zhang said.

Tian Hui, deputy head of the Beijing Rural Commercial Bank, apologized at the news conference, saying the bank will strictly follow epidemic control and prevention measures, ensure basic service operations and has established a working group for the new cluster.