Staff of Haikou Meilan International Airport carry out disinfection operations at the check-in counter on August 7, 2021. Photo: cnsphoto

China issued on Monday the guidelines for epidemic management during the New Year and Spring Festival holidays stressing the prevention of imported infections, main cause of local outbreaks in China recently. 

The document, released by the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council, says China will enhance cross border transportation and cooperation with neighboring countries on anti-epidemic work.

The circuit breaker mechanism will be strictly implemented on flights and ships coming to China. Air carrier passengers and crews have to conduct strict personal protection during flight, the planes have to be disinfected in accordance with standards and can only be used again after an inspection by related authorities. 

Drivers of cross border vehicles transporting goods should be managed within a closed loop and should not contact any person outside it. 

The document also requires closed loop management on all international arrivals and personnel on high-risk positions, including staff at land, air and seaports.

People who travel through Chinese land ports, with the exception of crossing points between the mainland and Hong Kong or Macao special administrative regions, have to provide negative nucleic acid test results within 48 hours, according to the guidelines.  

The plan stipulates that port cities with large volumes of imported cold-chain food products have to build a centralized warehouse to disinfect and inspect the goods. 

The guidelines also call for strict measures to prevent the Omicron variant, urging related authorities at different levels to pay close attention to the transmission of the variant in neighboring countries, enhance capacity in virus gene sequencing and adjust anti-epidemic policies according to the public health situation. It also urges authorities and pharmaceutical companies to timely evaluate the efficacy of existing vaccines and drugs and conduct development and research on upgraded versions.    

During a press conference on December 11, Wu Liang, an official from the National Health Commission, said that results of an epidemiological investigation showed that over 40 flareups in China were caused by imported infections.