China’s capital Beijing on Wednesday shut down several metro stations besides schools, restaurants and businesses and ordered daily COVID-19 testing of its 21 million people as it ramped up measures to prevent the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant which has brought the financial hub Shanghai to halt for over a month.

Beijing reported 53 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the total to over 500 cases as the capital continues enforcing strict anti-virus measures and postponed school reopening for a week as a precautionary measure.