Status: 08/08/2022 11:18 a.m
Hainan is considered the most popular holiday island in China. But because of new corona infections, millions of residents and tens of thousands of holidaymakers are locked down in several places.
China is not calming down in the corona pandemic: After the outbreak of the corona virus on the southern Chinese tropical island of Hainan, the authorities imposed strict exit restrictions for parts of the holiday paradise. A lockdown was ordered for the provincial capital Haikou with its three million inhabitants and other cities.
A curfew had previously been imposed in the holiday resort of Sanya. About 80,000 tourists are now stuck in “China’s Hawaii” as flights, trains and other public transport have been halted.
In Sanya, the measures that have been in place since Saturday are expected to last a week for the time being. If you want to leave, you have to deliver five negative tests within seven days. Since Sunday, there has also been a lockdown in other cities in Hainan – including Haikou.
millions of people affected
In less than a week, more than 1,100 infections were discovered on the southern Chinese island of ten million people, state media reported. One problem is the lack of test capacity, so the full extent is not yet known.
At least eight cities and municipalities with a total of around seven million inhabitants said that people are not allowed to leave their homes unless they need a corona test or have to do grocery shopping or important work tasks. Public transport has also been discontinued.
Authorities order hotel discounts
Authorities ordered hotel prices for stranded tourists to be halved. However, the party-affiliated newspaper “Global Times” reported on individual cases in which hotels refused the price reduction or had doubled the price without further ado.
As the rest of the world tries to live with the virus, Beijing continues to implement a strict zero-Covid strategy to nip any outbreak in the bud. China is one of the few countries in the world to oblige travelers to quarantine. Individual infections are immediately responded to with curfews, mass testing, and other restrictions. However, the measures are a burden for the second largest economy, which is only growing much more slowly.
Hong Kong eases entry quarantine
The semi-autonomous Hong Kong, on the other hand, announced that the quarantine regulations there would be relaxed. Prime Minister John Lee announced that mandatory isolation in a hotel would be reduced from one week to three days from Friday. After that, travelers would be under medical observation for four more days and would not be allowed to move freely in Hong Kong.