Beijing has done away with the guideline that residents should wear masks while stepping out, the first city in China and perhaps in the world to do so in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

After months of wearing masks to prevent infection risks, people can now breathe freely outside without a mask in Beijing, the State-run China Daily has reported, citing the new guidelines announced by the Beijing Centre for Disease Prevention and Control on Sunday.

On Sunday, China’s National Health Commission reported 17 new coronavirus cases, including 12 asymptomatic infections, while officials in Wuhan, where the outbreak originated, continued vigorous testing of its over 11 million residents after new clusters of Covid-19 emerged in parts of the city.

8000 quarantined

Officials concerned about a virus resurgence have quarantined 8,000 people and reintroduced lockdown measures in northeastern China, even as other parts of the country further relax restrictions.

Residents of Jilin, the second-largest city in Jilin province, have been mostly barred from leaving the city, State news media reported, after a cluster of infections was reported there and in Shulan, another city under its administration.

Shenyang, capital of the neighbouring province of Liaoning, said on Saturday that anyone who had travelled there from the city of Jilin since April 22 would be quarantined in a hospital for three weeks.

Mainland China has reported five new cases for May 16.

New wave fear

Zhong Nanshan, the Chinese government’s senior medical adviser, told CNN on Saturday that the danger of a second wave of infections is looming large.