China determined to contain virus

HI-TECH: DELIVERY ROBOTS AND MONITORING CAMERAS

Beijing loosens stringent lockdown restrictions in capital this week.

Robots delivering meals, ghostly figures in hazmat suits and cameras pointed at front doors: China’s methods to enforce coronavirus quarantines have looked like a sci-fi dystopia for legions of people.

Authorities have taken drastic steps to ensure people do not break isolation rules after China largely tamed the virus that paralysed the country for months.

With cases imported from abroad threatening to unravel China’s progress, travellers arriving from overseas have been required to stay home or in designated hotels for 14 days.

Beijing loosened the rule in the capital last week – except for those arriving from abroad and Hubei, the province where the virus first surfaced late last year.

At one quarantine hotel in central Beijing, a guard sits at a desk on each floor to monitor all movements.

The solitude is broken by a visitor allowed near the rooms: a three-foot-tall cylindrical robot that delivers water bottles, meals and packages to hotel guests.

The robot rides the lift and navigates hallways on its own to minimise contact between guests and human staff.

When the robot arrives at its destination, it dials the landline in the room and informs the occupant in a childlike voice: “Hello, this is your service robot. Your order has arrived outside your room.”

Its belly opens and the guest takes the delivery items before the robot turns and rolls away.

Doctors in hazmat suits go from room to room reminding occupants to take their temperatures with the thermometer provided at check-in and to ask if any are experiencing symptoms.

People under home quarantine elsewhere in the city have had silent electronic alarms installed on their doors.

Officials put up a notice on each quarantined household’s door asking neighbours to keep an eye on the confined inhabitants.

In one Beijing residential compound, people under home quarantine must inform community volunteers whenever they open their doors.

Friederike Boege, a German journalist, began her second quarantine in Beijing this year on Sunday after returning from Hubei’s capital Wuhan.

Her building’s management installed a camera in front of her door to monitor her movements. – AFP

Picture: AFP ROOM SERVICE. A robot capable of taking lifts and navigating hallways on its own delivers food to a guest at a quarantine hotel housing people from Hubei province in Beijing.