(Yicai Global) March 17 -- All overseas arrivals must be transferred to centralized facilities for 14-day health observation starting from yesterday, Beijing has decreed.

These centers will be staffed by medical professional and others, and visitors can be observed from home after strict evaluation and under special conditions. In principal, those isolated must pay the costs of their quarantine. Those who falsify information, conceal illnesses and cause the spread of the epidemic will be held to book in accordance with laws and regulations, with a demerit entered into their social credit files.

A shuttle bus dedicated to carrying visitors to China International Exhibition Center New Venue for registration and a health check stands ready at the airport.

Arrivals from abroad await departure for quarantine on a bus.

An ambulance gets ready to transport a passenger for isolation and observation.

Visitors whose destinations are other provincial-level administrative areas in China will be transported by their local ambulances to these places for centralized observation.

Staffers in China International Exhibition Center New Venue's transfer center make their rounds.

Bus transport is only available to those whose possibility of infecting Covid-19 was initially excluded after primary screening by Customs and the local health commission. The photo shows a passenger who just alit from a bus.

An ambulance from Dezhou in China's eastern Shandong province stands ready to receive an occupant.

The red banner on a bus from Tieling in northeastern Liaoning province reads, 'Welcome back to Tieling. We have come to get you.'

China yesterday reported 21 new confirmed cases and 13 new deaths. As of that day, visitors entering China via land, sea and airports of entry across the country have averaged 120,000 since March 11, down more than 80 percent from the same period last year, data the National Immigration Administration also published yesterday show. Of these visitors, more than 67,000 traveled in overseas countries and regions severely hit by the epidemic, and Customs at their places of entry were notified in a timely manner for health observation Purposes, the agency said.

Editor: Ben Armour