Hong Kong Special Administration Region Customs

The General Administration of Customs (GAC) has moved to step up health quarantine measures at China's coastal ports and airports, including strictly verifying health declaration cards of inbound passengers, monitoring their body temperature, enforcing heightened medical inspection, sampling and testing.

In response to the latest flare-up of the highly transmissible Delta variant across the country, Lin Wei, director of Health and Quarantine Department under GAC, said on Thursday at a press conference that the administration will carry out "four necessary strict measures." 

"GAC should strictly verify all coronavirus-related declarations, clear out all persons suspected of infecting with the virus, test inbound passengers and timely report all positive cases, once detected," Lin said. 

In addition, the customs will immediately upgrade airport prevention and control system, strengthen the prevention and control measures for all crew personnel, and implement health quarantine and sampling testing for international flights and cargo flight crews.

Lin said GAC will work in close partnership with local health authorities in order to achieve closed-loop management to contain the spread of the pandemic imported through the ports. 

The new outbreak in China was caused by an international passenger at the Nanjing Luokou International Airport and was propagated by the mixing of domestic and foreign airport cleaning staff. 

A total of 220 coronavirus cases have been reported in Nanjing city as of Thursday. Currently, the outbreak has spread to 17 provinces across the country, with nearly 500 people infected.

Global Times