Hundreds of flights to and from Urumqi, the capital of China’s western Xinjiang region, were canceled on Friday, after the region reported the first confirmed case of coronavirus in about five months.
Measures to control the epidemic led to the cancellation of more than 600 scheduled flights at Urumqi Diwopu International Airport, or more than 80 percent of the day’s total, figures from aviation data firm Variflight showed. The state-owned Global Times said 89 percent of all inbound and outbound flights had been canceled.
Subway services were also suspended late on Thursday, and bus services in a neighboring city district closed with all front-line workers to undergo COVID-19 testing, according to state media.
A large number of flights to / from Urumqi Airport in Xinjiang, China were canceled. On July 15, Urumqi reported 1 new COVID-19 case and 3 asymptomatic cases. # VariFlightPro_APP pic.twitter.com/b2QLaSosXR
– VariFlight (@VariFlight) July 17, 2020
The Chinese National Health Commission reported 10 new confirmed cases, one of local transmission in Xinjiang and nine of international travelers from abroad.
On Thursday, health authorities in Urumqi said a 24-year-old woman with symptoms such as a sore throat, fever and headaches tested positive for the virus. Three people with whom he had close contact tested positive but showed no symptoms. An asymptomatic case involving someone traveling from Xinjiang was also reported in eastern Zhejiang province.
Xinjiang is home to the majority of Uighur Muslims and has been subject to intense state control in recent years. The UN estimates that around one million Uighurs have been detained in re-education camps that China describes as vocational training centers necessary to combat “extremism”.
On Friday, the provinces and airlines moved quickly to impose strict health control measures on people arriving from Xinjiang. Donghai Airlines, based in Shenzhen, in the south, said that since Friday all people traveling from Urumqi would need to show a negative COVID-19 test taken in the last seven days.
Mainland China had confirmed 83,622 coronavirus cases as of late Thursday, with 4,634 deaths. Another 104 asymptomatic patients are under observation.
Beijing, which suffered a new outbreak last month, did not report new cases for the eleventh consecutive day.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
.
