China’s coronavirus cases fall to 2-week low
- Ten cases, 8 of them in Harbin city, were reported on Friday
- Health authorities tell people not to travel to high and medium-risk areas of Heilongjiang and Fujian during upcoming holiday
The municipal authorities have told local residents to reduce unnecessary travel, but the city’s transport network is still operating.
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Passengers need to show a negative coronavirus test report issued within 48 hours if they need to leave Harbin, state news agency Xinhua reported.
The city’s health authority said that within the past few days 3.15 million residents in Bayan county and three nearby districts had been tested.
Nationwide three areas have been identified as having a high-risk of spreading the disease and 33 others are medium-risk – all in Heilongjiang or Fujian.
The state health authority has told the public not to travel to these places during the upcoming week-long National Day holiday, especially not to Xiamen, a popular tourist destination.
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Some provinces, including Jiangxi and Zhejiang in southeastern China, have imposed more stringent rules, requiring public servants not to leave the province.
Meanwhile Yangzhou, a city in Jiangsu that saw an outbreak at the end of August, eased restrictions, saying middle school pupils can return to school next Thursday, and primary and kindergarten pupils a week later.
Last month Zhang had been criticised by the former health minister Gao Qiang in an article on a social media account of People’s Daily after he suggested China may need to learn to “coexist” with Covid-19 – something seen by many as an official response.
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On Friday Zhang posted on Weibo that Shanghai the city should not relax its efforts.
“We should be patient when dealing with this virus,” he wrote. “In the normalised fight against the coronavirus, every city and every village needs to implement the anti-epidemic measures into daily life and integrate those efforts into people’s hygiene awareness.
“Everybody must believe that with the fast development in science, erasing the harassment of viruses is only a time issue. What’s more, it won’t be too long.”
