China tightens quarantine as imported virus cases rise
Anyone arriving from abroad will be quarantined for 14 days: Beijing; S.korea reports 76 new cases; Singapore urges citizens to defer non-essential travel; Malaysia cases linked to Islamic gathering
China has tightened check son international travellers at Beijing airport and said it will centrally quarantine all arrivals at its capital, after new imported coronavirus cases surpassed locally transmitted infections for a second day.
China, where the epidemic began in December, appears to now face a greater threat of new infections from outside its borders as it continues to slow the spread of the virus domestically.
Mainland China reported 20 new cases of infections on March 14, up from 11 cases a day earlier, data from by the National Health Commission (NHC) showed on Sunday.
Of those, 16 were imported, including 5 in the capital Beijing. Three of the cases in Beijing involved travellers from Spain while one came from Italy and the other from Thailand.
Against this background, the Beijing government has said anyone arriving from abroad will be transferred to city quarantine facilities for 14 days, starting Monday.
All expenses during the period will be borne by those in quarantine, city deputy secretary general Chen Bei said.
Some may be allowed to quarantine themselves at home after strict evaluation, Chen added, without offering details. China is making efforts to restart work cross its factories and businesses, which had been halted amid virus-related curbs, as the numbers of new infections fall further.
Some cities with no infections in recent days, such as Shanghai and Hangzhou, have started opening tourist attractions, restaurants and gyms.
State organisations and public institutions in Xiangyang, the second-largest city in Hubei province, will fully resume work from Monday, the Global Times reported.
The western region of Xinjiang also plans to reopen schools in batches starting from Monday, state media reported.
Limitations, however, remain in place. Beijing, for instance, has allowed restaurants to start reopening but requires them to prevent diners from eating meals while directly facing each other and tables must be spaced a metre apart, the Xinhua news agency said.
Saturday’s figures bring the total number of confirmed cases in mainland China to 80,844. The death toll reached 3,199 as of the end of Saturday, up 10 from the previous day. All ten deaths occurred in Wuhan, the NHC said.
South Korea on Sunday reported 76 new coronavirus cases and three deaths, marking the first time in over three weeks that new cases have dropped to double-digits, as President Moon Jae-in declared the hardest hit provinces “special disaster zones”.
It is the first time South Korea has declared a region a disaster zone from an infectious disease and under the status the government can subsidise up to 50% of restoration expenses and exempt residents from taxes and utility payments.
South Korea, which has the highest number of cases in Asia after China, now has a total to 8,162 confirmed infections and 75 deaths, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said (KCDC).
South Korea has been experiencing a downward trend in new cases and the latest numbers are significantly lower than the peak of 909 cases reported on Feb.29 and down from the 107 recorded on Saturday.
Singapore’s health ministry on Sunday urged its citizens to defer all non-essential travel abroad as part of its latest measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Singapore will also tell all travellers to the country with recent travel history to southeast Asian nations, Japan, Switzerland or the United Kingdom to quarantine themselves at their place of residence for 14 days, the ministry added.
These measures come as the majority of new infections being reported in the city-state over the past few days have been people arriving from overseas rather than local transmissions.
Malaysia said Sunday that more than half the country’s 428 coronavirus cases were linked to an international Islamic gathering held last month.
The Southeast Asian nation announced a spike of 190 new infections over the weekend, mostly linked to a global Islamic event attended by almost 20,000 people.
“Of the 428 cases, 243 are participants from the religious event in Sri Petaling mosque,” Noor Hisham Abdullah, director-general of the health ministry, told reporters.