Avoid COVID risk during festival, Beijing says

Beijing encourages all residents to spend the coming Dragon Boat Festival in the city, and said people should avoid infection by staying away from places of high or medium risk, a senior official said at a news conference on Tuesday.

The traditional Dragon Boat Festival will fall on June 3 this year, and people will have a three-day holiday starting on Friday.

Beijing reported five new locally transmitted cases as of 3 pm on Tuesday, bringing the total number of infections to 1,757 since April 22, according to Liu Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control on Tuesday.

Of the new infections, except for one case discovered at the community level in Changping district, all were reported in quarantine locations.

Of the 1,757 cases found during the latest outbreak, as of Tuesday afternoon, Chaoyang district registered 424, the most in the outbreak, followed by Fangshan, which reported 413 cases since April 22. Changping reported 23 cases during the same period.

As of Monday, Beijing had three high-risk areas for COVID-19 and 12 medium-risk areas.