A Hanting Hotel (Dashanzi) in Beijing's Chaoyang district, where one confirmed imported COVID-19 patient stayed and two new related local cases were reported nearby, was designated a medium-risk area on Saturday, a senior official said at a news conference on Dec 20.

It is the one and only medium-risk area in the capital city at present; the country has 16 medium-risk areas now.

According to Pang Xinghuo, deputy head of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the hotel and immediately adjacent businesses will be managed under medium-risk area regulations.

The health authority will start nucleic acid testing for all residents in nearby communities. These residents are not allowed to leave the city when it's not necessary. If anyone in the area has to leave the city, that person should bring a negative nucleic acid test result within seven days.

All restaurants, convenience stores and hairdressers are required to cut their operating hours and strictly conduct body temperature checks.

According to Pang, the two confirmed local cases were contacts of the imported case, a person who stayed in the hotel. They are both workers at a restaurant near the hotel and lived in the same dormitory.

One of the two cases had been to a large-scale residential community in Changping district on Monday and stayed until 7 am the next morning.

Changping district has started investigating the close contacts of the case and conducting mass testing for residents in the community.

At present, 25 of the person's close contacts and 21 secondary close contacts have been taken to a centralized medical observation center to cut possible infection.