China announces special flights to bring back overseas students
CHINA has taken a series of measures to protect the health of Chinese living or studying abroad while stemming potential import of the novel coronavirus disease, an aviation official said yesterday.
Between March 4 and 26, China arranged nine special flights — three to Italy and six to Iran — to bring back 1,466 Chinese citizens, according to Lu Erxue, deputy head of the Civil Aviation Administration of China.
From Iran alone, the special flights flew back 976 Chinese citizens, most of whom were Chinese students, he said. The fourth such flight from Italy is scheduled to bring back 180 Chinese citizens to the eastern city of Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province.
Another plane left Shanghai for London early yesterday to ferry 180 overseas Chinese students home, the first such flight orchestrated for Chinese citizens in the United Kingdom, Lu said.
Immigration officers at Shanghai Airport opened a special rapid-service channel for the flight yesterday.
At 7:30am, the officers helped two medical workers from Xinhua Hospital to complete procedures required to exit the country and allowed them to use the special channel. Following them were 24 crew members for the flight.
Two hours later, flight MU7071 took off on time, bound for London.
According to the inspection station, the return flight left London late yesterday and is expected to arrive in Jinan City, Shandong Province, today.
The Chinese Embassy in London said on Wednesday it was assisting to fly Chinese students home from the UK.
The decision was announced earlier in the day by China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying at the regular press meet.
Liu Xiaoming, Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom, said that there were more than 220,000 Chinese students studying at 154 universities in the UK and over 1,000 British primary and secondary schools.
To minimize the risk of imported cases, the CAAC said it sought to keep international flights per week under 134, including necessary ones to carry Chinese studying or living abroad back home. Just 108 flights have been granted permission this week.
For Chinese citizens who remained abroad, 116 tons of health supplies have been delivered to Chinese embassies and consulates in seven countries including Italy, the United States, France and the United Kingdom as of Wednesday, with the rest of the 300-ton supplies bound for 12 countries to be delivered before April 10, according to Lu.
Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu said yesterday China is distributing 500,000 health kits, including over 11 million face masks, 500,000 disinfection supplies and epidemic prevention guidelines, to Chinese students studying abroad.
A total of 1.6 million Chinese students study overseas, of which 36 have tested positive, said Ma.
The National Health Commission has instructed Chinese medical teams fighting COVID-19 abroad to offer health guidance to overseas students through symposiums and live video broadcast.
The overall number and proportion of overseas Chinese students infected with the coronavirus are at a relatively low level, according to the Ministry of Education. It said the emergency mechanism will be activated immediately once a confirmed or suspected case is found.
China is tightening its border control to prevent the potential second wave of the epidemic brought by overseas arrivals. China had 35 new cases of the disease on April 1, all of which were imported, the NHC said.
On Wednesday, Shanghai reported six more imported cases — three of them returning Chinese students from abroad, taking the total number of imported coronavirus cases to 183. Another 16 imported suspected cases are undergoing check.
The number of new asymptomatic cases on China’s mainland fell sharply to 55 on April 1, from 130 the day before.
(Shanghai Daily/Agencies)