Beijing steps up COVID-19 prevention and control measures in sports facilities

Children take part in outdoor activities under the guidance of teacher at a primary school in Beijing, , July 19, 2021. (Xinhua/Peng Ziyang)

Sports and fitness venues in Beijing are required to exercise stricter epidemic prevention and control measures in a bid to curtail the spread of COVID-19's Delta variant.

BEIJING, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sports has urged all sports and fitness facilities to exercise stricter epidemic prevention and control measures as the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 spreads.

A notice released by the bureau said that the number of people in sports facilities in Beijing is increasing with great and frequent personnel exchanges, which leads to severe challenges in epidemic prevention and control, especially in areas such as swimming spots, confined gyms and sports training facilities.

The notice further required sports and fitness facilities to strictly monitor the health status of employees and implement regular nucleic acid tests for employees, as well as environmental nucleic acid detections in the facilities. Personnel involved are also required to be fully vaccinated.

Other epidemic prevention and control measures include, but are not limited to, temperature checks, health code checks, reservation only, staggered entry, air ventilation, thorough disinfection, the notice added.

After 179 days without any locally transmitted cases of COVID-19, Beijing has seen eight new local cases since July 29, with the latest wave of infections in China thought to stem from an airport employee in Nanjing.

China has reported a total of 93,701 infections since the COVID-19 outbreak in late 2019.