So far, the scale of the outbreak appears to be limited. On Monday, officials announced 50 new cases, down from the 59 reported on Sunday. At a news conference on Sunday, health officials said that they had successfully sequenced dozens of cases and established clear chains of transmission.
By acting early, officials in Beijing are hoping to avoid a punishing lockdown similar to the one in Shanghai during the past month. Since the beginning of March, Shanghai has reported more than 550,000 cases, leading officials to institute harsh quarantine measures that have resulted in shortages of food and supplies as well as protests.
Cases in Shanghai are now falling. On Monday, the authorities reported about 6,600 new infections, down from 7,800 the day before. In recent days, the local government has shuttered several mass quarantine sites that had been used to house patients.
Concerns remain about China’s population of older adults, who have emerged as one of the most vulnerable groups during the pandemic. Just over half of people 80 and older have had two shots, and less than 20 percent of that age group have received a booster, Zeng Yixin, a vice minister of the National Health Commission, said in March.
Over the weekend, the authorities were put on alert after several videos were widely shared on Chinese social media showing workers in protective suits unzipping a body bag and wheeling it back into a home for the care of older adults in Shanghai. On Monday, local officials confirmed that a person had been put into a body bag while still alive, according to Chinese state media. The officials added that the person had since been transferred to a hospital and was showing stable vital signs.