Pay for your quarantine: Beijing to incoming travellers as China sees more imported cases
New imported cases accounted for 16 of the 20 new cases reported until early Sunday with remaining four reported from outbreak ground zero Wuhan city in the central Chinese province of Hubei.
Beijing on Sunday stepped up quarantine measures for incoming international travellers to the city as China recorded more imported coronavirus (covid-19) cases in the country compared to new local ones until Saturday midnight.
New imported cases accounted for 16 of the 20 new cases reported until early Sunday with remaining four reported from outbreak ground zero Wuhan city in the central Chinese province of Hubei.
With 10 new deaths, 3199 people have now died in China with 80844 infected, the national health commission (NHC) said on Sunday.
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The number of new cases has fallen dramatically in March with 16 cities in epidemic-hit Hubei excluding capital Wuhan reporting zero new cases for 10 consecutive days.
However, provinces and especially big cities are tightening measures to control the entry of imported cases.
International travellers landing in Beijing will be quarantined for 14 days at their own expense, a city official announced Sunday afternoon, tightening measures that were already in place.
From Monday, everybody entering Beijing from outside the country will be transferred to a central isolation facility for 14 days of observation, Chen Bei, deputy secretary general of the Beijing municipal government, was quoted by local media as saying.
“Some people were asymptomatic when they arrived in Beijing but were confirmed with the disease several days later when symptoms showed,” the Beijing News quoted Chen as saying.
Passengers who do not disclose their medical history could be penalised.
Central health authorities reported 16 new imported cases of the coronavirus, five of them in Beijing, taking the total to 111.
As many 47 of them are from Iran, and 35 from Italy.
All international flights into the capital’s new Daxing airport in south Beijing have now been rerouted to arrive at the older Beijing Capital airport, where arrivals will be screened and monitored, state news agency Xinhua reported Saturday.
Meanwhile, China has restored normal traffic order in most areas, as 1117 of the 1,119 closed expressway entrances and exits across the country have re-opened as of March 14, official news agency, Xinhua reported
It added that a total 549 blocked national, provincial, county and township roads have re-opened, and 11198 of the 12028 highway health and quarantine stations have been removed.
The Hubei province will introduce differentiated neighbourhood management policy as the number of patients continues to drop, the provincial health authorities said over the weekend.
“The neighborhood lock-down policy will be completely lifted in both city and rural areas in those low-risk areas,” according to Liu Dongru, deputy head of the provincial health commission.
Such policy will be loosened in the medium risk areas, while the neighbourhoods in the high-risk areas will still be locked down with traffic control implemented and gatherings banned, Liu was quoted as saying by Xinhua.