Hong Kong yesterday began enforcing a mandatory two-week quarantine for anyone arriving from mainland China, a dramatic escalation of its bid to stop 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) from spreading.
The vast majority of people crossing the border are expected to self-quarantine, and would face daily telephone calls and spot checks by officials, with up to six months in prison for those found in breach of the isolation period.
Authorities hope that the prospect of quarantine will virtually halt cross-border traffic, while allowing the territory to remain stocked with food and goods from the mainland, where the virus has now killed more than 700 people.
Photo: AFP
Arrivals have plummeted by 75 percent in recent weeks, but thousands were lining up in neighboring Shenzhen on Friday night to beat the midnight deadline before the quarantine rules began.
By early yesterday, only a trickle of people were arriving via the Shenzhen Bay crossing.
“I have to come back because my daughter is going to school here,” a woman who gave her surname as Song told reporters after ending a 20-day family holiday in the mainland.
“We will quarantine ourselves, because this is for the public good,” she said.
A security guard who gave his surname as Lam said that arrivals were up about 50 percent in the past few days and most were Hong Kongers.
Hong Kong lawmakers unveiled how the quarantine would work on Friday evening, just six hours before the policy took effect.
Hong Kong residents are allowed to self-quarantine at home, while mainland and international visitors are to stay in hotels or other accommodation they have arranged.
However, those with no planned accommodation would be taken to temporary facilities prepared by the government.
Anyone who has been to mainland China in the 14 days prior to arriving in Hong Kong from another destination also faces quarantine.
Visitors with a visa for fewer than 14 days would be denied entry.
Meanwhile, research by Chinese authors published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Friday said that diarrhea might be a secondary path of transmission for 2019-nCoV.
The primary path is believed to be virus-laden droplets from an infected person’s cough.
However, “the 2019-nCoV virus found in stool may be transmitted through fecal spread,” said Liao Jiayu, a bioengineer at the University of California, Riverside.
Benjamin Neuman, a virology expert at Texas A&M University-Texarkana, said that while fecal transmission was “certainly worth considering,” “droplets and touching contaminated surfaces then rubbing eyes, nose or mouth” were likely the main way the virus was transmitted based on current data.
The death toll from the outbreak soared to 722 in China yesterday, including the first foreign victim.
A 60-year-old US citizen diagnosed with the virus died on Thursday in Wuhan, the city at the epicenter of the health emergency, said the US embassy, which did not provide more details about the person.
A Japanese man in his 60s with a suspected coronavirus infection also died in a hospital in Wuhan, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, adding that it was “difficult” to confirm whether he had the illness.
Figures from yesterday showed there were more than 34,500 people infected in China.
Outside mainland China, there have been more than 340 infections reported.
In Japan there were 25 cases plus 64 onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked at Yokohama.
Singapore had 33 cases; Thailand 32; Hong Kong 26, including one death; South Korea 24; Malaysia 16; Australia 15; Germany 14; Vietnam 13; the US 12; France 11; Macau 10; the United Arab Emirates seven; Canada five; the Philippines three, including one death; India, Britain and Italy three each; Russia 2; Nepal, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Finland, Spain, Sweden and Belgium one each.
Taiwan had 17 confirmed cases.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)