MADRID, 24 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Government of China has transferred the focus of concern over the COVID-19 pandemic to Beijing, where the central authorities have demanded more measures from the local authorities to stop once and for all an outbreak of cases that remains practically constant, with dozens of new positives every day.
At the national level, the daily cases have dropped below a thousand and are already far from the almost 30,000 that were registered in mid-April, after the authorities have contained outbreaks such as those in Shanghai, whose inhabitants have spent weeks confined.
In Beijing, an additional 63 positives were reported on Monday and experts predict that the capital’s outbreak could still last until June, according to the ‘Global Times’ newspaper which, like other official media, echoes the evident concern for the health situation.
Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, responsible for monitoring the evolution of the epidemiological crisis, toured some of the places with cases in Beijing on Monday and called for a greater response. Thus, although she pointed out that the pandemic seems controlled, there may still be occasional spikes in infections.
Sun’s trip to Beijing — after he had traveled to Shanghai last month — is especially symbolic because it shows the government wants to monitor more closely the response of local officials. Not in vain, on other occasions, punishments were adopted against local authorities for alleged failures to contain the pandemic.
Jokes have been posted on social media about the lockdowns that supposedly follow Sun’s visits to different cities, according to the Bloomberg news agency. His trips usually precede stricter measures to try to comply with the zero cases policy that President Xi Jinping still defends.