The Covid-19 outbreak in Beijing, which was first reported on June 11, seems the be over as no new cases were reported for the past nine consecutive days. However, Beijing is still under Level II emergency management, with temperature and QR-code checks performed when entering restaurants, office buildings and housing compounds. Travelers wishing to leave Beijing no longer need to show the result of a recent nucleic acid test but are allowed to travel upon presentation of a green QR-code, indicating they have not recently visited a red zone or come into contact with a Covid-19 patient. In the past four weeks, the average number of new cases steadily declined in Beijing, from an average of 22.6 in the first week, to 15.9, 8.6 and 0.9 in the following weeks. The last Covid-19 infection was reported on July 6, bringing the total of this outbreak in Beijing to 335. Less than 250 patients are still being treated in hospital. Many Beijing residents believe this trend is a positive sign that they will soon be able to return to normal life. Beijing started to gradually release about 74,000 quarantined people who were exposed to the Xinfadi market. However, Beijing’s announcement of no new infections does not mean no risks, said Pang Xinghuo, Deputy Director of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the past nine days, in the whole of China, only a few new cases were reported – all imported – in addition to a few asymptomatic cases.

The largest organized activity in the country since the outbreak of Covid-19 took place in early July as more than 10 million high school students took the university entrance examinations in one of 7,000 examination sites across the country. The exam, which usually takes place in June, was postponed till July due to Covid-19. In Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, more students than usual opted to apply to study medicine.

Besides Covid-19, China also had to cope with other incidents. Beijing residents felt a slight tremor at 06:38 h. on July 12 as a 5.1 earthquake shook the city of Tangshan in Hebei province, where the devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake on July 28, 1976 claimed at least 242,000 lives. This time there were no casualties and only limited material damage. Wuhan, where the first Covid-19 patients were identified in December last year, and the neighboring province of Jiangxi, are battling heavy rainfall and flooding of rivers and lakes.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong is battling a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the city. Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch of the Center for Health Protection, said he was worried there would be a massive community outbreak. Hong Kong has now registered 1,323 cases with seven deaths. A care home for the elderly is at the center of the new community outbreak, as well as two restaurants. Experts point to a lack of Covid-19 testing and issues with quarantine exemptions as key factors for the new outbreak. Foreign domestic workers, mainly coming from the Philippines and Indonesia, would be required to take a Covid-19 test before coming to Hong Kong and undergo a 14-day quarantine in hotel accommodation paid for by their employers. Aircrew, who are now also exempted from quarantine, would be required to submit deep-throat saliva samples on arrival at Hong Kong International Airport. The spate of new local infections of unknown origin could push back the establishment of health codes and travel bubbles with neighboring regions, Chuang said.

Chinese media reported an outbreak of an “unknown pneumonia” in neighboring Kazakstan, and added that the disease was more deadly than Covid-19. But Kazakh authorities said the reports were inaccurate. Based on the little information disclosed thus far, it is difficult to conclude whether the pneumonia found in Kazakhstan is Covid-19 or a new pneumonia, Wang Guangfa, a leading Chinese respiratory expert at Peking University First Hospital in Beijing, told the Global Times. The World Health Organization (WHO) said it had no information about a new kind of pneumonia in Kazakhstan.

Coronavirus has been detected in China on the packaging of frozen shrimps imported from Ecuador, and online platforms and restaurants have halted imports of the shrimps. The contaminated products were found by customs authorities in Dalian and Xiamen after the testing of food imports had been strengthened.

This overview is based on reporting by the Global Times, China Daily, South China Morning Post and Shanghai Daily.