Chinese cities on high COVID-19 alert as peak Chinese New Year travel season starts
BEIJING: Several Chinese cities went on high COVID-19 alert
as the Chinese New Year holiday travel season started on Monday (Jan 17),
requiring travellers to report their trips days before their arrival, as the
Omicron variant reached more areas including Beijing.
Authorities have warned the highly contagious Omicron adds
to the increased risk of COVID-19 transmission as hundreds of millions of
people travel around China for the Chinese New Year holiday starting at the end
of the month.
Cities such as Luoyang in the central China and Jieyang in
the south said on Sunday travellers need to report to communities, employers or
hotels their trips three days ahead of arrival.
The southwestern city of Yulin said on Saturday those who
want to enter should fill in a digital form including their health credentials
and trip details one day in advance.
Over the weekend, the capital Beijing and the southern
technology hub each detected one domestically transmitted Omicron case. So far,
at least five provinces and municipalities reported local Omicron infections,
while 14 provincial areas found the variant among travellers arriving from
overseas.
China is yet to show any solid sign of shifting its
guideline of quickly containing any local infections, despite a high
vaccination rate of 86.6 per cent. The strategy has taken on extra urgency in
the run-up to the Winter Olympics, to be staged in Beijing and neighbouring
Hebei province starting Feb 4.
Many local governments have already advised residents not to
leave town unnecessarily trips during the holiday, while dozens of
international and domestic flights have been suspended.
China reported 163 locally transmitted infections waith
confirmed symptoms for Sunday, official data showed on Monday, up from 65 a day
earlier.
There were no new deaths on Sunday, leaving the death toll
at 4,636. As of Jan 16, mainland China had 105,087 confirmed cases with
symptoms, including both local ones and those arriving from overseas.
The latest increase in infections was mainly driven by more
cases in the cities of Tianjin and Anyang, where Omicron has been found in
local clusters.
Tianjin and Anyang reported slightly more than 600 local
symptomatic infections from the current outbreaks, smaller than many clusters
overseas, but authorities there still have limited movement within the cities
and trips to outside.
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