With the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics getting near, Chinese authorities are becoming increasingly nervous about the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Last Sunday, two people in Tianjin, a city neighboring Beijing, were found infected with the Omicron variant. Municipal authorities have since conducted two rounds of PCR tests targeting the city's entire population.
The tests turned up 181 new coronavirus cases by Friday although it is unknown whether the number includes any Omicron cases.
The authorities launched the third round of citywide testing on Saturday.
City officials say around 345,000 university students, faculty members and staff have left the city for winter recess since December 23. Of them, a student was found infected with Omicron in Anyang, Henan Province, while two more were confirmed with the variant in Dalian, Liaoning Province.
Elsewhere in the country, eight new Omicron cases were confirmed on Friday in an area neighboring Macao in the southern province of Guangdong.
With around three weeks to go before the opening of the Olympics, the Chinese government is scrambling to rein in infections by banning entry into Beijing from the regions where new cases have been confirmed within a two-week period.
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