The Latest: Beijing shuts main food market after 7 new cases

BEIJING— Beijing closed the city’s largest wholesale food market Saturday after the discovery of seven coronavirus cases in the previous two days.

The Xinfadi market, which has 4,000 tenants, will be disinfected after workers tested positive and the virus was found in the environment, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The National Health Commission said that six new cases were confirmed in Beijing on Friday. Another case was reported Thursday. They are the first locally transmitted cases in the Chinese capital in more than 50 days.

Attention focused on the market after the discovery of the first three cases. Two of the infected people had been to the market, and the third worked with one of them at a meat research institute, according to Chinese media reports.

City officials said late Friday that all the workers were being tested for the coronavirus. They also ordered the testing of food and environmental samples from all the city’s wholesale food markets.

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