Beijing tests food, parcel couriers for coronavirus as city checks widen

Officials in Beijing are carrying out nucleic acid tests on all food and parcel delivery personnel as they ramp up efforts to rein in an outbreak of the coronavirus in the Chinese capital, state-backed Beijing News reported on Saturday.

Officials have been expanding testing across the city of 20 million since a cluster of new infections linked to a food wholesale market erupted just over a week ago. The outbreak, the first in Beijing in months, has now surpassed previous peak numbers in early February.

Testing for Covid-19 initially focused on residential areas near the sprawling Xinfadi market and on people who