Swift action puts Beijing on road to recovery

Later that day, He went to the hospital when his temperature rose to 38 C, and it was confirmed that he had COVID-19.

Xu, the doctor, said the patient's temperature returned to normal on June 16 and his symptoms, body imaging and laboratory indicators gradually improved.

"He will be quarantined for 14 days and has been asked to return to the hospital for new checks 14 days and 28 days after being discharged," she said.
The patient had been on leave from his job as a bus driver at Beijing Capital International Airport, as shuttle bus services at the facility had been suspended.

Speaking at a news conference on June 30, when the second patient in the cluster to recover was discharged, Wu Guoan, deputy head of Beijing Ditan Hospital, said, "Gradually, more patients will recover and leave hospital.

"All of them will have to undergo centralized quarantine for 14 days before they can return home. So far, we haven't seen any human-to-human infection caused by patients who have recovered."

Xu Hejian, a spokesman for the Beijing municipal government, said that as of Saturday afternoon, nine patients had been discharged from hospital.

The capital reported one new infection on Friday, bringing the number of confirmed cases to 332 since the first case in the cluster was detected on June 11, Xu said.

"The number of new local cases has been kept at single digits for six days in a row, which shows that Beijing has contained the spread well," Xu added.

All COVID-19 patients have been sent to Beijing Ditan Hospital in the capital's Chaoyang district. Affiliated to Capital Medical University, the facility is well-known for dealing with infectious diseases.

However, it is not easy receiving a large number of COVID-19 patients in a short period of time and preventing any possibility of nosocomial infections－those caught in a hospital and potentially caused by organisms resistant to antibiotics.