Beijing grapples with Delta, Omicron infections ahead of Winter Olympics

Chinese capital Beijing reported five new COVID-19 cases of the Delta variant on Wednesday, days after the first Omicron case was detected in the city bracing to host the Winter Olympics from next month.

Four of the infected people are the employees of a cold storage company in Fangshan district. The fifth person, who lives with one of those employees, also works in the cold storage industry, Liu Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Beijing Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, (DCP) told a news conference here.

The Delta variant was detected from samples. All of the cases have been transferred to designated hospitals for medical treatment, he said.

The city which is bracing to host the Winter Olympics from February 4 reported first case of Omicron variant on January 16 prompting the health officials to ramp up testing and tracing.

Concerns were heightened as millions of people were set to travel across the country to celebrate the week-long Spring Festival and Chinese New Year from the end of this month.

Chinese officials blamed the lone Omicron case in Beijing on international mail delivered from Canada to Beijing via the US and Hong Kong.

The single Omicron case detected in Beijing was traced back to an international document from Canada, and it was found to have similar strains from those in North America and Singapore, according to health officials.

Few days ago, the Omicron variant was found in the nearby Tianjin city.

Since Beijing reported one locally transmitted case on Saturday, the infected cases have involved Haidian, Chaoyang, Fangshan and Fengtai districts by Wednesday in the current COVID-19 outbreak in the capital city, the state-run China Daily reported.

The DCP has released the tracks of the new cases and asked the residents who have been to those places during the same period to report to local communities as soon as possible.

Liu said residents should not leave Beijing before receiving nucleic acid testing results.