Chinese cities issue travel warnings after Fujian's Covid-19 outbreak
BEIJING : China's Covid-19 outbreak in Fujian province, which has reported 152 local cases in five days, has prompted cities in other parts of the country to issue travel warnings ahead of major holidays, though state media warned against imposing blanket travel curbs.
The travel warnings come ahead of the week-long National Day holiday starting on Oct 1, a major tourist season, as well as a shorter Mid-Autumn Festival holiday next week.
The last outbreak in July-August, which saw strict curbs in some cities, hit tourism, hospitality and transportation sectors and significantly slowed retail sales growth.
Even though all new local cases in China since Sept 10 were reported in south-eastern Fujian province only, the northeastern city of Jilin, as well as Maoming and Guangzhou in the south, have advised people against non-essential trips out of their provinces. Shanxi and Heilongjiang provinces have also made similar advisories.
But state tabloid Global Times said in an editorial yesterday that local officials should not casually advocate blanket orders to stay put.
"We need to gradually enhance the accurate efficiency of our dynamic zero-case route," the newspaper said.
"We should avoid a complete halt on a large scale. We have to strive for early detection of each outbreak. We also need to make sure that we can contain it faster so that it will cause less harm to the society."
There were 50 local cases on Tuesday, compared with 59 a day earlier. All were in Fujian, bringing total cases in the three Fujian cities of Putian, Xiamen and Quanzhou to 152. - REUTERS
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