BEIJING (AP) – China on Tuesday dealt with the outbreaks of the coronavirus in its icy northeast, resulting in additional closures and travel bans for the New Year holiday next month.
The country reported another 118 cases on Tuesday, 43 of which were in Jilin province. In the Hebei province just outside Beijing, another 35 cases were seen, while the Heilongjiang province bordering Russia reported 27 new cases.
Beijing, where some residential communities and remote towns have been placed under lock-in, has reported only one new case.
A fourth northern province, Liaoning, has also imposed quarantines and travel restrictions to prevent the virus from spreading further. Some of the measures are being introduced in a large part of the country to prevent new outbreaks during the lunar New Year holiday in February.
Authorities urged citizens not to travel, and ordered schools to close a week early and conduct large-scale tests.
The provincial capital of Hebei, Shijiazhuang, has built a complex of prefabricated housing units to enable 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 coronavirus was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019. China does not include people who are positive but have no symptoms.
A World Health Organization multinational investigator is currently undergoing a two-week quarantine in Wuhan before embarking on field visits in hopes of finding 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 from most other countries to New Zealand will have to show negative coronavirus tests from January 25, officials announced on Tuesday. New Zealand recently imposed the rule on travelers from the US and the UK, extending it to all other countries, with the exception of Australia and a handful of countries in the Pacific. Travelers returning from Antarctica were also released. COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said New Zealand was one of the most stringent border measures in the world, needed to maintain the strategy to eliminate the virus. There is currently no community spread of the virus in New Zealand, with all known infections among travelers quarantined at the border. Most travelers must spend two weeks in quarantine upon arrival.