Beijing outbreak on the wane, officials say

Beijing reported 20 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases as of 3pm on Friday, bringing the total number of infections to 1,701 since April 22, Liu Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said at a news conference on Friday afternoon.

"All the new infections were reported in quarantine locations, and no cases were found from mass nucleic acid tests at community level," he said. "Beijing has basically cut off early transmission chains in the ongoing outbreak and the epidemic situation is under control and showing a downward trend."

Of all 1,701 cases, Chaoyang district registered 422, the most in the outbreak, followed by Fangshan, which reported 413. Fengtai reported 368 and Haidian reported 235 during the same period.

"Chaoyang has not reported any cases at the community level for more than three days, and Fangshan has had no cases reported at the community level for more than seven days," Liu said.

As of Friday, Beijing had seven high-risk areas for COVID-19 and 17 medium-risk areas.

On Thursday, Zhong Dongbo, deputy head of the Beijing Health Commission, said Beijing's epidemic situation is controllable overall and will realize dynamic zero-COVID soon.

He added the number of transmission chains and infection clusters has dropped from around 17 at the peak to three in recent days and the new cases have mainly been found in controlled zones and quarantine locations.