China plans tough measures to crush new covid outbreaks

"CHINA'S MOST frightening outbreak of covid-19 lurks in Harbin, a north-eastern city known for Russian architecture and a winter festival featuring large castles hewn from river ice. Traced to a Chinese student who flew from America in March, the outbreak has pushed the city of 10m back into semi-lockdown, weeks after a first wave of the virus was defeated in Wuhan, far to the south.

The Chinese authorities are deeply alarmed by imported cases. The country's borders are closed to almost all foreigners and only about 20 international flights land in all of China each day. Domestically, however, travel bans are being lifted, and businesses and schools urged to resume work. Not in Harbin. Travellers reaching the city from abroad must spend 14 days in government-arranged quarantine, then another 14 in isolation at home. School reopenings have been postponed. A single case in a housing compound condemns every resident there to a fortnight's quarantine. When those unfortunate neighbours emerge from isolation they may not leave Harbin. That ban is enforced via smartphone apps that must be shown by all domestic travellers.

The world is familiar by now with China's approach to virus control, combining brute force (breaking transmission chains by preventing Chinese people from meeting others, if needs be for weeks) with high-tech surveillance and contact tracing. The Harbin lockdown is revealing because it was triggered by such a small cluster. At the time of writing, the city has just 63 confirmed cases of covid-19, plus another 17 asymptomatic cases." [1]

1. "Virus exceptionalism; Chaguan." The Economist, vol. 435, no. 9192, 2 May 2020, p. 33(US).