Langfang：Strengthening the Quarantine Policy in Designated Places for Inbound Travelers

The Press Conference of Langfang city on COVID-19 control was held by Langfang Municipal Government on 16:00, January 24, 2021. According to Mr. Su Bingwu, deputy secretary-general of Langfang Municipal Government and director-general of the city’s Foreign Affairs Office, Langfang has received a total of 3955 inbound travelers through air, land and water entries since the special transfer workgroup stationed in Beijing established in March 11^th, 2020. In the recent fortnight, the city received 139 inbound travelers (including 1 American citizen), and no confirmed cases, asymptomatic carriers and close contacts found in these people. 

Langfang Municipal Government takes the prevention of inbound cases as the most important task in epidemic control and prevention. We eliminated the thoughts of relying on luck in work and established bottom line thinking, further completed the shield against inbound cases, thus protecting the safety and health of the people.

It is reported that Langfang has 11564 overseas citizens, 2918 of them have returned and 8646 still in foreign lands. The department of all levels will shoulder their territorial responsibilities of epidemic control and prevention, keep track of the citizens who return to Langfang from overseas and establish dossier for them, and get accurate number of citizens overseas, their intention to get back to China, and the life track of inbound travelers. According to investigation, there are 68 overseas citizens intend to come back before Spring Festival. In the meantime, the approval of delegations of Party and government officials going abroad or to Hongkong and Macau remains suspended. We suggest our citizens to avoid unnecessary outbound activities for better control and prevention of the epidemic.

Langfang Municipal Government established special workgroup on inbound entries to keep an eye on all air, water and land entries, and gather information including traveler’s quarantine days, number of nucleic acid tests received and the time of returning to Langfang in advance. A total of more than 5000 pieces of information has been processed by us. We have designated personnel to pick them up, and put them into community managing system after nucleic acid and antibody tests. The communities and workplaces join hands to strictly implement the measures of dossier establishment, body temperature monitoring and code scanning, making sure to form a closed loop including quarantine in designated places, self-isolation, nucleic tests, safe transfer and community control and prevention. 

The measures of quarantine in designated places for inbound travelers in Langfang have been adjusted and strengthened. On the basis of "14+7 quarantine" policy, an additional 7 days monitoring is added, meaning that all inbound travelers must undergo 14 days of quarantine in designated places in ports of entry (the nucleic acid and antibody tests will be performed in the first day and the last), and 7 days of quarantine in designated places(nucleic acid test every other day) plus an additional 7 days of health monitoring(report body temperature and symptoms to employers and communities) after returned to Langfang.

In additional, to further enhance the work of inbound cases prevention and the stability of overseas citizens, all departments involving foreign affairs and nationals living abroad launched "Operation Heart-warming" for our overseas citizens, strengthening the communication with Chinese embassies abroad, giving full play to overseas Chinese societies, Chinese student group, business and hometown associations, to help lift confidence of overseas Langfang people and provide guidance and assistance in epidemic prevention. Making sure to stabilize their emotion and avoid infection in the journey back to China. Strengthen the epidemic prevention for personnel of overseas Chinese enterprises and projects, making sure that the corresponding company, local government and department are shouldering their responsibilities to prevent inbound cases.