(Yicai Global) June 15 -- Alipay and WeChat Pay, China’s two biggest digital payment platforms, have both denied supplying data to help prevent and control Covid-19 as the virus re-emerged in Beijing,

Neither company is responsible for helping local authorities hunt down 350,000 citizens to test them for the disease, they said in independent statements on Weibo. Citizens should stick to reading official releases from healthcare and anti-pandemic authorities, they both said.

Beijing reported 79 new Covid-19 infections from June 11 through midnight today, after having logged no new cases for 56 consecutive days. The city has linked all of the cases to the Xinfadi Wholesale Market, the biggest supplier of agricultural produce and commodities in Beijing.

Hebei province reported three new cases, Liaoning added two and Sichuan logged one, according to figures from their provincial governments, who linked the patients to the outbreak in Beijing.

The capital has collected 41,510 samples for Covid-19 testing from people in residential communities near Xinfadi and 6,284 of those have tested negative, Gao Xiaojun, spokesperson for the Beijing Municipal Health Commission, said at a press briefing this morning. The city has also taken samples from 29,386 people who visited the market within the last 14 days and cleared 12,973 of them.

Editor: James Boynton