Beijing raised its COVID-19 threat level Tuesday and decided to close all schools as it contends with a fresh wave of cases, according to state media.
The People’s Daily says officials locked down nearly 30 communities in the capital after dozens of new cases were uncovered Tuesday.
Taxis are banned from leaving the capital, while northeast cities such as Harbin are requiring visitors from Beijing to go into quarantine so they can be tested for the virus. Northeast provinces say they’ve seen cases linked to the capital-city cluster.
The surge traced to the Xinfadi food market is raising fears of a “second wave” after the communist government took draconian measures to stamp out the disease that sprung up in the central provincial capital of Wuhan in December.
Coronavirus cases surpassed 8 million worldwide on Tuesday, as parts of Europe, Asia and North America try to move beyond the worst of the coronavirus pandemic but find the pathogen is difficult to stamp out completely.
The U.S. and Canada will keep their border closed to all but essential travel for another 30 days, to July 21, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday.
Within the U.S., hospitalizations and reported infections are rising across the Sun Belt states of Florida, Texas and Arizona.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose state is seeing positive trends after getting slammed early on, announced Tuesday he will allow hospitals to accept visitors at their discretion. He said the U.S. Open tennis tournament will begin Aug. 31 in Queens, though without fans.
Also Tuesday, researchers said a low-cost inflammatory drug — dexamethasone — appeared to improve survival rates among COVID-19 in a study, providing a dose of much-needed hope.
Researchers at the University of Oxford said a trial involving 6,000 patients found the drug reduced deaths by a third among patients on ventilators, and by a fifth among those receiving oxygen.
“Dexamethasone is the first drug to be shown to improve survival in Covid-19. This is an extremely welcome result,” said Peter Horby, professor of emerging infectious diseases at Oxford. “The survival benefit is clear and large in those patients who are sick enough to require oxygen treatment, so dexamethasone should now become [the] standard of care in these patients. Dexamethasone is inexpensive, on the shelf, and can be used immediately to save lives worldwide.”
