High alert as holiday travel season begins

Several mainland cities went on high alert at the start of the Lunar New Year holiday travel season yesterday, requiring travelers to report their trips days before their arrival, as the Omicron variant reached more areas. The Winter Olympics are also just three weeks away.

Authorities warned that Omicron adds to the increased risk of Covid transmission as hundreds of millions of people travel around China for the Lunar New Year on February 1.

Cities such as Luoyang in central China and Jieyang in the south said travelers need to report to communities, employers or hotels their trips three days ahead of arrival.

The southwestern city of Yulin said those who want to enter should fill in an online form, including their health credentials and trip details, one day in advance.

Over the weekend, the capital Beijing and the southern technology hub Shenzhen each detected one domestically transmitted Omicron case.

China has stuck to a strict policy of targeting zero Covid cases even as the rest of the world has reopened. But its approach has come under sustained pressure in recent weeks with multiple clusters in key cities just as the Games are about to get under way in Beijing. There were 223 more cases reported yesterday, including another 80 in the virus-hit port city of Tianjin, and nine more - including Omicron cases - in Guangdong.

Athletes and officials have already started to land in the capital ahead of the Olympics, immediately entering a tightly controlled bubble separating them from the rest of the population. But after a local Omicron case was detected in Beijing, authorities also tightened regulations for arrivals from elsewhere in China.

The city is now demanding a negative test before travel and a follow-up test after entering, with residents urged not to leave the capital for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday.

Some tourist sites have also been closed.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE