China extends work-from-home order as Covid-19 cases rise in Beijing

Beijing: China has extended orders for workers and students to stay home and ordered additional mass testing from Monday as cases of COVID-19 again rose in the capital Beijing.

Numerous residential compounds in the Chinese capital have restricted movement in and out, although conditions remain far less severe than in Shanghai, where millions of citizens have been under varying degrees of lockdown for two months.

Beijing on Monday reported an uptick in cases to 99, rising from a previous daily average of around 50. In total, China reported 802 new cases Monday, marking a steady decline interrupted only by small-scale localized outbreaks. 

Despite that, the government has hewed to strict quarantine, lockdown and testing measures under its ‘zero-COVID’ approach, even while the outside world is opening up.

Meanwhile, the global coronavirus caseload has topped 525.5 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 6.27 million and vaccinations to over 11.44 billion, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Monday morning, the University`s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and the death toll stood at 525,577,051 and 6,277,152, respectively, while the total number of vaccine doses administered increased to 11,442,406,120.

The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world`s highest number of cases and deaths at 83,281,329 and 1,002,173, respectively, according to the CSSE.

India accounts for the second-highest caseload at 43,136,371. The other countries with over 10 million cases are Brazil (30,791,220), France (29,580,970), Germany (26,045,528), the UK (22,422,800), Russia (18,026,628), South Korea (17,967,672), Italy (17,247,552), Turkey (15,063,298), Spain (12,234,806) and Vietnam (10,708,887).