After a deliveryman diagnosed with Covid-19, Beijing residents felt worried over takeaway orders

News24xx.com - Since the coronavirus outbreak in China, delivery rider Wu Jun always took extra precautions on the job.

He kept a bottle of disinfectant on his electric scooter to sanitize his hands after every order and made the extra effort not to touch his face.

But when news broke last Tuesday (June 23) that a delivery rider working for the Ele.me platform had been diagnosed with Covid-19, Mr Wu, who works for a courier company, said he "felt a moment of panic".

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"While we don't send as many orders as those on the food delivery platforms, we still come into contact with many people," he said.

He was among 100,000 delivery riders - ranging from those who deliver food and groceries to those who send online shopping packages - ordered to undergo nucleic acid testing for the coronavirus, the same way the Ele.me rider's case was detected.

The 47-year-old man, who has been identified by local media as Mr. Kong, delivered up to 50 orders a day in Beijing's Fengtai district, ground zero for the new outbreak linked to a sprawling wholesale market in the area.

Since the first case surfaced on June 11, over 300 cases linked to the market have been detected in the capital alone, with dozens more related cases in several other provinces, ranging from neighboring Hebei province to the northeastern Liaoning, over 400km away.