China takes a hard line at the border to beat coronavirus imports
- Preventing imported cases ‘top priority’ as criminal charges threatened for travellers who make false health declarations
- As other countries also impose tough border controls, there are calls for global collaboration to save world economy
The central government said on Monday that arrivals who were infected, or suspected to be infected, and refused medical and quarantine inspections – or who made false statements about their health on customs declarations – would be convicted.
The document, issued jointly by five authorities, said that any inbound traveller who carried unapproved microorganisms, human tissue, biological products and blood and evaded quarantine inspection would also be subject to criminal charges.
China reported a further drop in the number of daily new infections, with 16 cases on Sunday, but its big cities are facing a daunting task in preventing the virus from being brought in to the country by travellers from overseas, as the disease spreads rapidly around the world.
Of the 16 new cases reported as of Sunday, 12 related to people who had arrived from another country. Their destinations in China included Beijing, Shanghai, and the provinces of Guangdong in the south, Yunnan in the southwest, and Gansu in the northwest.
So far China has reported more than 100 imported cases of the virus, with 11 of the affected travellers found to have given false information, according to calculations by the South China Morning Post.