Photo: Li Hao/GT

Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sports announced on Tuesday night it would reopen outdoor and indoor sports and fitness facilities in an orderly and safe manner as the capital city adopts coronavirus prevention and control measures to fend off risks of a resurgence of COVID-19 cases.

The bureau said it will allow sports facilities to reopen amid the novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) outbreak in four stages. In the first stage, some outdoor facilities were partially allowed to reopen by reservation, including athletics, table tennis, badminton, tennis and so on from April 3 to 21. 

If no coronavirus-relevant cases occur in the first stage, other sports activities would be pushed forward from April 22 to 28, using the guideline of making an appointment, strict implementation of personal information inspection, registration, temperature checks, wearing masks and controlling the number of people, the announcement said.

From April 29 to May 6, some indoor facilities would reopen, including athletics, table tennis, badminton and tennis. While starting from May 7, more indoor facilities would reopen offering sports activities except judo, taekwondo, wrestling and Chinese boxing.

While overseas coronavirus cases continue to climb and China accelerates work resumption, Beijing recently had two family outbreaks triggered by imported cases while other provinces and cities saw outbreaks within families and medical institutions, which all sounded a warning for prevention and control measures in the capital city, Chen Bei, the vice secretary of the Beijing municipal government, said at Tuesday's press briefing.

Although the epidemic in China started to show signs of slowing in March, Beijing has recorded sporadic cases in April. From April 1 to April 20, there were 10 imported cases in total, one of which was caused by a family reunion, according to media reports.

Also, local authorities in Beijing on Tuesday encouraged local tourist sites to implement an online booking system for buying tickets to parks, support the use of barcode payment, electronic ticketing and other non-contact service technical means to reduce personal contact.

Scenic spots are also being urged to control tourist flows, which should not exceed 30 percent of the maximum level.