Chinese authorities have welded shut the entrance of a housing block with confirmed Covid-19 cases and punished a government-owned newspaper for not following the official line, in desperate efforts to cope with the pandemic's spread in the national capital.



Beijing confirmed 13 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, taking the number of local patients to 269 since authorities publicised the eruption of the second wave of Covid-19 cases in the city two weeks ago.



Separately, the government’s Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission said it suspended the Beijing News’ account on Weibo — China's equivalent of Twitter — after netizens accused the media outlet of spreading disinformation.



While the office did not specify the Weibo post in question, it was widely speculated that a recent post on Beijing News' Weibo account had crossed the line by failing to suggest Europe was the most probable origin of the coronavirus and had led to Beijing's latest outbreak.



The Chinese government had been peddling the claim that the strain of coronavirus responsible for its second wave of infections originated from Europe and landed in China via frozen food.



Meanwhile, a video uploaded to the internet shows a block on a residential estate in Beijing's Haiding district that has numerous confirmed Covid-19 cases, with its main entrance sealed by welding to prevent residents from leaving.



Authorities have also assigned at least 100 medical workers from Wuhan and other regions to help with Beijing's disease relief efforts.



A Wuhan resident told Radio Free Asia that the latest actions taken by authorities showed Beijing was desperate and "had no better alternatives."



In the same Radio Free Asia report, a Beijing resident said she heard that Beijing You'an Hospital confirmed more than 300 Covid-19 patients on June 14 alone, and that the official number was not even one-third of the actual figure.



A leaked meeting agenda of Beijing's Ping Gu district officials showed the Beijing municipal government had approved plans to build three makeshift hospitals in the district, suggesting that the actual situation could be far worse than the official version.


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