As Coronavirus Returns to Beijing, Schools Shut and Flights Are Halted

After a fresh outbreak of coronavirus infections, the city of Beijing has begun imposing a milder reprise of the controls that China enforced across the country earlier in the year to stifle the first wave of infections. The outbreak is a reminder to residents that even in China — with its arsenal of high-tech surveillance tools and other authoritarian powers — the virus that causes Covid-19 can leap back into life, triggering new and disruptive restrictions.

The Chinese Communist Party has reacted to the latest outbreak with a tough approach. Much is at stake for the party’s credibility: In recent weeks, officials had been trumpeting their success in stifling the virus. Now it is back in this city of over 21 million.

Party officials in charge of Beijing, including the city’s party secretary, Cai Qi, have sounded chagrined about the flare-up of cases that emerged at the large Xinfadi food market in the city’s south.

So far the scale of infections in Beijing is far from reaching the levels that gripped Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the virus first emerged late last year. Nor are the restrictions in response as severe. The Beijing government reported on Wednesday that the number of coronavirus cases had risen to 137, after an additional 31 cases were reported that day.

Most Beijing streets flowed with traffic on Wednesday, though less than usual, and the public mood appeared resigned rather than panicked. Restaurants still opened for business, though the government has ordered them to disinfect and check employees.

But hundreds of flights to and from Beijing, roughly 60 percent of departures, were canceled. Fear both of infections and of quarantines prompted many passengers to stay put.