China Calls Covid-19 Cases In Silence Come From People Coming From Indonesia

Illustration. (Photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - The Center for Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases (CDC) in Beijing City, China, said that the discovery of several COVID-19 cases in Shunyi District in the last few days came from someone who had just arrived from Indonesia.

Through analysis of the overall genome sequence, the COVID-19 virus is closely related to the strain found in Southeast Asia in November 2020. The CDC determined that the source of transmission was from an asymptomatic person from Indonesia who was first discovered on Monday, December 28.

"The asymptomatic person from Indonesia arrived in Beijing on December 10 armed with a negative nucleic acid test certificate (swab) after undergoing a 14-day quarantine in Fujian Province," the OneTube news page monitored by Antara Beijing was quoted as saying on Thursday, December 31.

The patient then lived in the Shunyi District, not far from Beijing Capital Airport (BCIA). However, until now Indonesia is not included in the list of countries whose citizens have been suspended from entering mainland China, as has been done to Britain, France and several other countries in Europe.

Meanwhile, spokesman for China's National Health Commission (NHC) Hu Qiangqiang said that during December 104 local residents were recorded as infected with COVID-19, an increase of 76.3 percent compared to November.

In Beijing itself, Shunyi District and Chaoyang District were the worst affected by COVID-19 ahead of the New Year.

Apart from Beijing, Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, also faces a similar situation. Epidemic control and prevention measures have been implemented in the two cities in the northeastern region of mainland China.

Beijing has implemented a mandatory 14 + 7 day quarantine and increased surveillance of people arriving from abroad in the past 21 days.

In Shenyang, someone who has just arrived from abroad has to have a swab test every three days for 21 days.

To avoid the spread of the outbreak, the NHC has advised the public not to travel out of the city during the end and early holidays of the year and closely monitor any activities involving 10 or more people.