Silent Carrier Confirmed, 131 Co-Passengers Quarantined!

Source: HangzhouTube, Global Times, CGTN, Chinanews.com

Good afternoon

According to Global Times, a suspect escorted from NE Chinas Jilin to SW China's Sichuan via train was confirmed to be a silent carrier. At least 131 co-passengers have been quarantined and more are being screened to rule out potential COVID19 infections.

Per Chinese media, on the afternoon of April 28, the suspect was arrested by Sichuan police in Yanji City, Jilin Province. Later that day, he traveled by train through Changchun, Jilin province and Beijing, arrived in Luzhou, Sichuan province late on April 29, and was detained in a police station together with nine other suspects.

Chinese mainland reports 2 new confirmed cases

Chinese health authority said Sunday that it received reports of two new confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland Saturday.

One was an imported case reported in Shanghai and the other was a domestically transmitted case in Shanxi Province, the National Health Commission said in a daily report.

No deaths or suspected cases were reported Saturday on the mainland, the commission said.

Harbin launches worlds first membrane Fire Eye lab to accelerate COVID-19 testing

Amid regional clustered COVID-19 infections and pressure from imported cases, Harbin in Heilongjiang Province has constructed the world's first membrane "Fire Eye laboratory" after 7 days of construction, which can examine 10,000 nucleic acid test samples a day.

The membrane lab has six chambers at 1,700 square meters. It has zones for sample collecting, sample storage, testing reagent preparation, sample processing, and a zone for further expansion.

Different function zones are separated from each other. Samples, medical waste, and personnel all enter from entirely different routes to minimize exposure risks.

The Harbin lab is equipped with 50 testing machines, including biosafe closets, antibody test machines, nucleic acid extraction, and gene sequencing machines.

Top scenic spots suspend bookings as post-epidemic capacity hits limit

A video posted on Sina Weibo shows thousands of tourists queuing up all night at the Taishan Mountain in East China's Shandong Province to wait for the sunrise.

The Taishan Mountain management committee published three notices on Friday night to take measures such as suspending ticket sales and bookings for visits at different times to control the increasing number of tourists.

 
Chinas Ministry of Culture and Tourism said that about 70 percent of national scenic areas have been re-open to the public. These scenic areas are trying to control the flow of visitors to under 30 percent of the maximum capacity.

A chart of hot tour destinations on Chinas online travel platform Ctrip shows that besides the Taishan Mountain, the ancient city of Xian in Northwest Chinas Shaanxi Province and Hangzhou, where the West Lake is located, in East Chinas Zhejiang Province, have also become popular among Chinese tourists.

Amid the COVID-19 epidemic, the number of tourists during this year's May Day holidays is expected to be 60 percent of last year's numbers which were 195 million tourists with total revenue of 120 billion yuan, Dai Bin, dean of China Tourism Academy, told the China Central Television (CCTV) on Friday.

Firms in Zhejiang show resilience to global COVID-19 shocks

In an online meeting held on Wednesday by the General Association of Zhejiang Entrepreneurs, renowned business leaders vowed to further promote digitalization and globalization as well as explore domestic demand to cushion the blow of the COVID-19 pandemic which has turned out to be far more complicated and severe than initially expected.

Participants of the meeting included Jack Ma Yun, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, Shen Guojun, chairman of Intime Retail (Group), Li Shufu, chairman of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, and Du Fujiang, chairman of Hangzhou Minsheng Pharmaceutical Group Co among others.

In the first quarter of this year, Zhejiang registered positive growth in 10 services trade sectors. The exports of telecommunications, computer and information services surged by 118.8 percent year-on-year to 31.32 billion yuan (about $4.44 billion) from January to March. The data comes as China's service trade fell 10.8 percent year-on-year during the same period due to the impact of coronavirus.

 

During difficult times, globalization also means responsibility for Zhejiang entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs must take the responsibility to restore globalization. When countries and the world as a whole are in trouble, we need to do business more than ever, because businesses and trade are key to resolving conflicts, Jack Ma said at the Wednesday meeting.

For Expats in Zhejiang

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