BEIJING (AP) – China on Tuesday dealt with coronavirus outbreaks through its cold northeast, prompting additional blockades and travel bans ahead of next month’s lunar New Year holidays.
The country reported 118 more cases on Tuesday, with 43 in Jilin province. Hebei province on the outskirts of Beijing reported 35 more cases, while Heilongjiang province, which borders Russia, reported 27 new cases.
Beijing, where some residential communities and outlying villages have been closed, only reported one new case.
A fourth northern province, Liaoning, has also imposed quarantines and travel restrictions to prevent the virus from spreading further, part of measures imposed in much of the country to prevent further outbreaks during the February Lunar New Year holidays. .
Authorities have asked citizens not to travel, ordered the closure of schools a week earlier and conducted massive tests.
Hebei’s provincial capital, Shijiazhuang, has been building a prefabricated housing complex to allow the quarantine of more than 3,000 people as it struggles to control more infections.
China has reported a total of 88,454 cases and 4,635 deaths since the coronavirus was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. China does not include people who test positive but show no symptoms. .
A multinational team of World Health Organization researchers is currently in Wuhan for two weeks in quarantine before starting field trips in hopes of gaining clues about the origins of the pandemic that has now killed more than 2 million people.
In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:
– Travelers to New Zealand from most other countries will have to submit negative coronavirus tests before departure on January 25, authorities announced on Tuesday. Recently, New Zealand imposed the standard on travelers from the United States and the United Kingdom and extended it to all other countries except Australia and a handful of Pacific Island countries. Travelers returning from Antarctica are also exempt. COVID-19 response minister Chris Hipkins said New Zealand has some of the strictest border measures in the world, which it needs to maintain its virus elimination strategy. There is currently no community spread of the virus in New Zealand, with all known infections among travelers who have been quarantined at the border. Most travelers have to spend two weeks in quarantine on arrival.