Shanghai Aids Quarantined Returning Foreigners, Strictly Controls Overseas Inflows
Jin Yezi
DATE:  Mar 27 2020
/ SOURCE:  yicai
Shanghai Aids Quarantined Returning Foreigners, Strictly Controls Overseas Inflows Shanghai Aids Quarantined Returning Foreigners, Strictly Controls Overseas Inflows

(Yicai Global) March 27 -- As China shifts its gaze for prevention and control of the Covid-19 pandemic to countering overseas inflows, those coming back to Shanghai from abroad to resume work have now become the focus as Shanghai tests and quarantines these returnees.

 "I will be able to say good-bye to this centralized quarantine in less than a week," Kelly, a Canadian, told Yicai global yesterday.

When Kelly's company told her to report back to work in mid-April she decided to factor in the 14 days' isolation and returned early. She arrived back in China's largest city from the US on March 18. Because she has two housemates and thus does not meet the requirements for home isolation, she was sent to a hotel in Pudong New Area for centralized quarantine after successfully undergoing screening.

She relates how staff in protective clothing deliver her three meals a day. "But I'm allergic to many things, including dairy products, so sometimes I can't eat the food in the set meal," she said, adding, "Though we can order some takeout here, the staff is very short-handed, and I don't want to cause them any more trouble, so I buy a lot of food online, which they bring to my room."

Kelly keeps her habit of exercising every day, and occasionally shares her work-out videos in her place of isolation on social media platforms.

Risk Assessment

Shanghai Customs conducts temperature monitoring, epidemiological investigation and other checks on arrivals, and travelers with obvious symptoms are transferred by ambulance to designated medical institutions for diagnosis and treatment. Passengers without clear symptoms but with a history of living in or travel to a pandemic hotspots are also whisked off to quarantine points for centralized sampling and testing, and administered treatment in accordance with their test results.

From March 24, Shanghai instituted 100 percent new coronavirus nucleic acid detection testing of all the people coming to the eastern megacity. As of 6.00 p.m. yesterday, all entering the financial hub are subject to 14 days' isolated health observation.

About 10,000 people like Kelly enter the country every day, Shanghai Customs said on March 24.

Pudong New Area, where Shanghai Pudong International Airport is located, has 34 centralized isolation observation points. From March 3 to 7.00 a.m. on March 24, these facilities took in a total of 8,939 inbound persons from key countries from the airport, including 1,025 foreigners. More than 1,000 staff have deployed in the new area for the seamless docking management of the inbound.

One-in-One

In furtherance of its policy of 'one person, one household' and 'one family, one household,' Shanghai has isolated the incoming at their homes, and adopted special supervision, smart door magnetic alarms and other means to treat Chinese and foreigners equally.

Biyun International Community in Pudong is a large-scale comprehensive international residential complex known as the 'little UN.' Among its 11,000 permanent residents are more than 5,000 foreigners from over 60 countries and regions such as the US, the UK and France. As of March 24, 311 people from major overseas virus areas were in home-based medical isolation there.

Jon, an American resident in Biyun, came to Shanghai to settle down in 2018 and teach English. This year, he and his wife took advantage of the Spring Festival holiday to visit several universities in the US with their son, who is in high school. The family returned to Shanghai on March 15.

Jon, who will be able to leave house isolation in a few days, told Yicai Global that after all the quarantine and inspection work at the airport they gave the screening personnel their address. After a quick check as to whether they qualified for in-home isolation, they rode a dedicated bus back to their home.

Barring Doors

"Community staff afterward told us the detailed isolation procedures and how to get food, and provided us with disinfectants, etc., and said we couldn't go out the door. Every day someone comes to take away the trash,. Both the community and the school are tracking their family in real time, Jon said.

Biyun has set up a group for each quarantined family on Tencent Holdings' popular WeChat messaging app made up of community doctors and social workers. If they require help, they can communicate their needs to this group.

No residents are currently proving uncooperative, said Li Danjie, Biyun's party secretary, adding those who are upset can receive psychological counseling.

Editor: Ben Armour

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Keywords:   Shanghai,Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia