Beijing to allow indoor dining, further easing COVID curbs

Beijing will further relax COVID-19 curbs by allowing indoor dining, as China's capital steadily returns to normal with inflections falling, state media said on Sunday.

Beijing and the commercial hub Shanghai have been returning to normal in recent days after two months of painful lockdowns to crush outbreaks of the Omicron variant.

Dine-in service in Beijing will resume on Monday, except for the Fengtai district and some parts of the Changping district, the Beijing Daily said. Restaurants and bars have been restricted to takeaway since early May.

Normal work will resume and traffic bans will be lifted on Monday in most areas of Beijing, the newspaper reported. Employees in some areas have been required to work from home.

Residents will need to show a PRC test taken within 72 hours to enter public spaces and take public transport, as part of steps to normalise COVID testing, the newspaper reported.

Beijing reported 16 new local symptomatic cases, up from five a day earlier, and three new local asymptomatic cases, up from one, according to the local government.

Shanghai reported six new local symptomatic cases, up from five, and 16 new local asymptomatic cases versus nine the previous day, local government data showed.

Mainland China recorded 162 daily coronavirus cases, of which 56 were symptomatic and 106 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said. That compares with 171 new cases a day earlier - 46 symptomatic and 125 asymptomatic, which China counts separately.

There were no new deaths, leaving the nation's death toll at 5,226. As of Saturday, mainland China had confirmed 224,310 cases with symptoms.