After 37 Days Of Lockdown Due To Omicron's New Cluster, Beijing's Situation Is Recovering Gradually

Illustration of the lockdown due to COVID-19 in China. (Wikimedia Commons/N509FZ)

JAKARTA - The situation in Beijing, China, began to gradually recover on Sunday after experiencing a 37-day lockdown due to the emergence of several new clusters of COVID-19, the Omicron variant.

Several bustling centers are not yet fully operational even though the capital city authorities have announced the easing of regional controls since last Saturday.

Quoted from Antara on Sunday, parks and open spaces, hawker centers, wholesale markets, and supermarkets in Chaoyang District were seen to remain closed.

The gates of line 10 metro train stations in Panjiayuan and surrounding areas are still locked. Only a few buses stops around Beijing's ring road 3 are operating again.

Residents are also still required to carry out mass PCR tests every day.

Some residential areas are also still heavily guarded by officials and people who have no interest are prohibited from entering. The closure of several residential areas had created a commotion between residents and officials on Jalan Huawei Li Panjiayuan. Several residents asked the authorities to immediately open the blockade that had been installed in their residential complex for more than a month.

On Friday, May 27 in Beijing there were only 23 new positive cases, while the next day only 12 cases.

Beijing has managed to control COVID-19 after six consecutive days of declines in new cases and eight districts without cases, the Beijing Municipal Government said in a press briefing on Saturday, May 28.

The easing of territorial control in Beijing coincided with the end of the visit of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) to China related to the Xinjiang issue which ended on Saturday.

Therefore, the lockdown in Beijing caused various speculations because it was considered political, and there was even a protest at one of the well-known campuses in the capital.