Beijing reported seven new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases from Tuesday to Wednesday afternoon, bringing the total number of infected people to 16 in the latest cluster involving a store that sold imported clothing.

The gene sequences of some cases in the cluster did not match the recent round of the epidemic in the city or other places across the country, Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said at a news conference on Wednesday.

"The virus is the Omicron variant and highly similar to virus strains from Europe and the United States in February this year, but with certain differences," she said.

The 16 cases include eight employees of the clothing store in Beijing's Chaoyang district, six family members of those employees and two other related people.

Beijing is continuing with its dynamic zero-COVID approach to deal with the current outbreak, Pang said.

"Schools and kindergartens are the key areas for epidemic control and prevention," she added, saying that people who return to Beijing from outside the city should not dine out, get together with groups or go to crowded places within seven days of arriving.

On Tuesday, Beijing downgraded its last medium-risk residential community to low risk after no new confirmed cases were reported in the community in the previous 14 days. The whole city has become a low-risk area.

Contact the writer at dujuan@chinadaily.com.cn