Chinese city on emergency footing to fend off coronavirus outbreak
- Heilongjiang province reports 19 more cases, most of them in Heihe
- Qiqihar stops people leaving the city without a negative test taken within the previous 48 hours
The announcement came as the National Health Commission (NHC) said on Sunday that 48 new community infections were reported across the country for the previous day.
Of those, 18 were in Heihe, Heilongjiang province, and one was in the provincial capital Harbin, taking Heilongjiang’s total in this outbreak to 55.
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In Qiqihar, about 300km (186 miles) from Harbin, no cases were reported but authorities declared a state of emergency for its 5.3 million people, preventing residents from leaving the city unless they showed a negative Covid-19 nucleic acid test taken within the previous 48 hours.
Checks on departing travellers were under way at the city’s railway stations, bus terminals, airport and highway entrances.
People who had travelled to Harbin over the past week were also asked to report to community authorities.
In the neighbouring city of Nehe, and in Kedong and Baiquan counties, all residents were being tested for the coronavirus.
Harbin’s education bureau also ordered a one-week citywide shutdown for all kindergartens, schools and vocational institutes from Monday and classes moved online.
On Saturday, NHC spokesman Mi Feng said the outbreak was “still developing rapidly, and the virus control situation is severe and complicated”. There had been cases in 14 provinces within 14 days, Mi said.
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Meanwhile, nine new community cases were reported in the northwestern province of Gansu for Saturday, taking the province’s total number of confirmed cases in this outbreak to 95. Gansu has also conducted more than 34 million tests.
The region of Inner Mongolia reported 10 additional local confirmed cases and two imported cases on Saturday. All of the 10 cases are concentrated in Ejin Banner under the Alxa League, bordering Gansu province. Two other local cases were reported in Yunnan in the southwest, one in Beijing and one in Jiangxi province in the country’s east. Shandong and Ningxia reported three cases each.
On Sunday, authorities in the city of Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, reported one more confirmed local case after screening train passengers.
The passenger was travelling from Shanghai to Shangrao in Jiangxi province and was listed as a close contact of other cases in the province. Eight other passengers travelling in the same carriage will be monitored as close contacts.
