As reports emerge of a new COVID-19 outbreak at a Beijing market, the vigor of the public health response from Chinese officials is only surpassed by the severity of their language. Since 106 new cases emerged around the Xinfadi wholesale food market in Beijing’s southwestern Fengtai district—following 56 days without any new infections—the Chinese capital has been plunged into what officials are calling “wartime mode.” Some 100,000 epidemic control workers have been deployed, at least 29 local communities placed under lockdown, schools and sports facilities shuttered, and various officials sacked. “Beijing is facing explosive and concentrated outbreaks,” Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mouthpiece People’s Daily on Monday.