Covid-19: China's Beijing to maintain emergency status as Winter Olympics loom

China's capital Beijing urged all its local districts on Saturday to maintain "full emergency mode" as the city continued to report new local coronavirus cases, less than two weeks before the start of the Winter Olympic Games.

A total of 27 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms and five local asymptomatic carriers have been found in Beijing since January 15, Pang Xinghuo, an official at Beijing city's disease control authority told a news conference on Saturday.

Elsewhere, the northeastern city of Harbin will conduct a city-wide exercise to test its roughly 10 million people for Covid-19 from Monday, although it has had no recent cases, calling it an pre-emptive move ahead of the long Lunar New Year holiday.

The city government said on its official WeChat account it had made the decision in view of how the week-long holiday, which officially starts on January 31, was a peak travel period for the country.

Cities across China have in recent weeks imposed tougher restrictions to try to control new outbreaks of Covid-19, a task that has also taken on extra urgency as Beijing prepares to host the Winter Olympics at the start of next month.

Many cities have advised residents to stay put or requiring travellers to report their trips days before their arrival.

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