Authorities in Beijing and other major Chinese cities have imposed stricter health screenings and even quarantine measures against travelers arriving from countries badly hit by the coronavirus, including South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy.
Photo: Ng Han Guan/Associated PressHONG KONG—China reported its first day without new locally transmitted coronavirus cases outside the city where the pathogen had emerged, just as Italy imposed a mass quarantine similar to the sweeping measures Beijing has used to contain the epidemic.
Chinese health authorities logged 44 new infections nationwide for Saturday, including 41 cases in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people where the epidemic began and which officials have sealed off since late January as part of an unprecedented quarantine effort locking down tens of millions of people.
The remaining three cases—two in Beijing and one in northwestern Gansu province—were “imported,” meaning the patients were infected abroad, China’s National Health Commission said Sunday.
Saturday’s tally was the lowest one-day case count China has reported since it started disclosing such figures in late January. It also marked the second straight day in which China reported new infections in double digits, down from hundreds of cases a day a month ago.
These figures “indicate that current prevention-and-control measures are scientific and effective,” health commission spokesman Mi Feng said at a Sunday news briefing. Since late January, Chinese authorities have implemented full or partial lockdowns in cities and communities across the country, curbing the movement of hundreds of millions of people.
Similar measures are now being imposed in Italy, the European country worst-hit by the coronavirus, where authorities early Sunday ordered a lockdown of some 17 million people, or more than a quarter of its population, in the country’s economic heartland.
The mass quarantine across much of northern Italy—effective till April 3—marked the most sweeping step any European country has taken against the coronavirus, which has sickened 5,883 people in Italy as of Saturday evening, of which 233 have died and 589 have recovered.
People stock up on basic goods at a supermarket in Milan, Italy, on Sunday.
Photo: carlo cozzoli/ShutterstockThe Italian lockdown came after the World Health Organization urged governments to take decisive action to halt the spread of an epidemic that has infected more than 100,000 people around the world, citing China’s containment measures as an example.
The coronavirus has now reached the Maldives, an archipelago nation in the Indian Ocean, which reported its first two cases on Saturday. The government responded by imposing stricter health screenings for travelers and quarantine arrangements, adding to an earlier decision to deny entry to travelers who arrive from or transit through Italy, according to statements from its presidential office.
The global spread of Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, has kept China on alert for more imported infections, according to Mr. Mi, the health commission spokesman. The commission has logged 63 such cases so far, out of about 80,700 cases in total.
Municipal authorities in Beijing and other major Chinese cities have imposed stricter health screenings and even quarantine measures against travelers arriving from countries badly hit by the coronavirus, including South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy.
In Iran, the number of deaths from coronavirus jumped sharply on Sunday to 194, a 33% spike since the day before, while the total number of coronavirus infections reached 6,566, up from 5,823 on Saturday, Iran’s health ministry said.
Iranian authorities have urged people to cease traveling inside the country in a bid to contain the virus. In a letter to the health minister, a group of doctors has demanded a closure of all pilgrimage and tourist places across the country.
The government on Sunday imposed a partial ban on flights and maritime travel to the popular holiday island of Kish for the coming Persian New Year later this month, according to the semiofficial Tasnim news agency. The partial ban comes after the first death from the virus on the island was confirmed on Saturday.
Iran Air, the country’s flag carrier airline, on Sunday canceled all flights to Europe due to restrictions placed on the airline by European countries “for unclear reasons,” Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization said in a statement carried by the IRNA state news agency.
Separately Sunday, Chinese authorities reported at least 10 deaths from the collapse Saturday of a hotel in the southeastern city of Quanzhou that was used for quarantining people who had close contact with Covid-19 patients.
Rescuers have pulled 48 people from the rubble, including the 10 dead, and more than 20 people remained missing as of Sunday afternoon, according to China’s Ministry of Emergency Management.
Write to Chun Han Wong at chunhan.wong@wsj.com
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2020-03-08 12:49:00Z
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