Beijing on Wednesday reported 31 new cases of novel coronavirus for June 16, four more than the day before, taking the total number of cases to 137 in six days as city authorities race to contain the fresh cluster of infection with renewed restrictions on travel and public gatherings.

By Tuesday, Beijing had reported 557 confirmed domestically transmitted cases, including 411 who had been discharged from hospitals after recovery and nine deaths, according to the report.

The city government had upped the emergency response level back to the second level from the third, barely two weeks after it had lowered it to the least after the capital reported no new case for almost two months.

Those who must travel out of Beijing, as per the directive, need to present a negative nucleic acid test result conducted within seven days of departure.

The new cluster, linked to the Xinfadi wholesale food market in the southwest Fengtai district, has spread to nine of the city’s 16 districts and at least 29 localities and streets.

About 200,000 people who had visited the Xinfadi market since May 30 were interviewed via door-to-door inquiries, calls, social media platforms and other methods.

On Tuesday, Deputy secretary-general of the Beijing municipal government said, The “…epidemic situation in Beijing remains grim”, as the city has been reporting a daily double-digit growth in domestically transmitted Covid-19 cases since June 11, Chen Bei.

Chinese officials warned that the coronavirus situation in Beijing is “extremely severe”.

The new cases took the number of confirmed infections in Beijing over the past five days to 106, as authorities locked down almost 30 communities in the city and tested tens of thousands of people.

The World Health Organization had already expressed concern about the cluster, pointing to Beijing’s size and connectivity.

Earlier on Monday, Beijing municipal government announced that the city was in “war-time mode” to tackle this new outbreak, which has resulted in 106 confirmed cases since June 11.

Until this recent outbreak, most of China’s cases in recent months were nationals returning home as the pandemic spread to other countries.

Meanwhile, the global tally of coronavirus cases is 8,112,565 and 439,050 people have died from the disease.

The United States, with 2,208,400 cases, remains the worst-hit country.