E-Paper
What Delhi could learn from Beijing on tightening screening ‘imported’ coronavirus cases
Measures in big cities are being tightened as overall the epidemic shows signs of stabilising in China with officials saying that locking down millions in cities and in their homes has worked.
China is stepping up coronavirus screening at airports and monitoring of people who have recently returned to cities like Beijing and Shanghai as it continues to report a falling number of new covid-19 cases nationwide but is increasingly wary of infected passengers coming in from abroad.
For anyone returning to Beijing from abroad, for example, 14-days of home quarantine is being strictly implemented for those with an address in the city.
For those without a permanent address, the person will have to spend 14 days in designated hotels.
Authorities in Beijing are also stepping up checks at areas where foreigners are known to gather.
“This is being done to ensure that no one from high-risk groups is missed out from being monitored and no ‘blind spots’ are left,” a local official said.
Measures in big cities are being tightened as overall the epidemic shows signs of stabilising in China with officials saying that locking down millions in cities and in their homes has worked.
On Monday, health authorities reported 40 new cases, the lowest number since the national health commission (NHC) began to put out national epidemic data on 20 January.
Of the 40 cases, 36 were from the virus epicentre of Wuhan, the capital of the worst-hit Hubei province.
The remaining four were cases imported from Iran.
The 40 infections and 22 new deaths reported until Sunday midnight took the infection toll to 80,735 and the number of deaths to 3119.
Despite the falling numbers, big cities like Beijing, China’s mega-capital of around 21 million people are introducing stricter control and monitoring measures to keep track of travelers coming into the city infected with covid-19.
The number of such cases has risen quickly in the last few days.
Authorities here increasingly mindful of the risk of new clusters of infection spreading from people both foreigners and Chinese nationals traveling back to China from new hot spots like Italy and Iran.
Beijing reported two more new Covid-19 cases as of Saturday midnight, one from Italy and the other from Spain, bringing the total number of imported cases in the city to 13. All of them are from Iran, Italy, and Spain.
In all, the city has reported 428 cases and eight deaths.
“At Beijing International Airport, passengers are being asked to disembark in small batches. They have their temperatures measured and file a health situation card before passing the border control,” according to a state media report.
Chinese and foreigners who arrive in Beijing from South Korea, Italy, Iran, Japan and other countries hit hard by Covid-19, are being asked to go into a 14-day quarantine.
The administrations of communities and apartment complexes have been instructed to coordinate: Those who are returning from abroad are expected to inform their apartment administration about their travel details.
The monitoring is strict.
“Four coronavirus patients returning from Italy were investigated by Beijing police for allegedly obstructing the epidemic prevention and control work after they took fever pills before boarding the flight and lied about their health at border control on Wednesday,” police said over the weekend.
