259 new cases of COVID-19 have been reported in southern China’s island province of Hainan, where some 80,000 tourists have been stranded by pandemic restrictions.
Key points:
- Tourists who want to leave Sanya must test negative for the coronavirus in five PCR tests over seven days
- The sale of train tickets outside the area has been suspended and more than 80% of flights have been cancelled, according to local media.
- In total, China has reported 324 new cases of local transmission, along with 483 asymptomatic cases.
The South China Sea island recorded only two positive symptomatic cases in all of last year. However, fast forward to this month and the number of cases has skyrocketed.
Authorities declared Hainan’s resort city of Sanya a COVID-19 hotspot and imposed a lockdown, confining Chinese citizens and expatriates to their hotels in what they hoped would be a largely tight-lipped holiday from China
Tourists wishing to leave Sanya must test negative for COVID-19 in five PCR tests within seven days.
Chinese businesswoman Yang Jing, along with her husband and son, were among those stranded.
The family has been staying in a four-star hotel while stranded on the island, which has been paid for out of pocket.
They have been eating pot noodles every day to avoid spending more on food.
“This is the worst holiday of my life,” said Ms. Yang, who is in her 40s and lives in southern China’s Jiangxi province.
Sanya reported 689 symptomatic and 282 asymptomatic cases between August 1 and August 7. Other cities in Hainan province, including Danzhou, Dongfang, Lingshui and Lingao, have reported more than a dozen cases in the same period.
Sanya authorities say stranded tourists can leave after five negative COVID tests within seven days. (ABC News: Paddy Fok)
On Saturday, train ticket sales from Sanya were suspended, state broadcaster CCTV reported, citing the national operator, and more than 80 percent of flights there from Sanya had been cancelled, according to the Variflight data provider.
Sanya authorities have said that stranded tourists can leave the island starting next Saturday, provided they have taken five tests for COVID and all have tested negative.
However, Ms Yang said waiting times for test results had been long, prompting her to take several tests a day.
“We don’t know who to go to, the Internet only has positive news about Sanya, like… the Sanya municipal government has successfully resettled the 80,000 stranded tourists… as if the whole country believes that [we] they are not victims, but beneficiaries,” he said.
Stranded tourists say they are not taken seriously
Hainan has been closed to foreign tourists for the past two and a half years since China, in response to the pandemic, stopped issuing tourist visas and implemented strict quarantine rules.
The Sanya government announced on Saturday that tourists who have canceled their flights will be able to book half-price hotel rooms.
But dozens of tourists complained in WeChat groups on Sunday that their hotels were not enforcing this rule and they still had to pay fees similar to the original prices.
Read more about the spread of COVID-19:
Two stranded tourists told Reuters they were in that situation. “Now we are looking for ways to complain and defend our rights, but so far no official body has contacted us or taken an interest in us,” said one of the tourists, a woman from the province from Jiangsu in eastern China, who only gave his last name as Zhou.
In total, China reported 324 new cases of local transmission on Monday, along with 483 asymptomatic cases, which China classifies separately.
China has firmly adhered to a policy of zero COVID, despite the economic and social costs.
It has credited the policy with keeping hospitalization and death rates lower than in other countries that have opened amid high vaccination rates, more effective treatments and the emergence of the more contagious but less lethal strain of the virus.
The outbreak in Hainan is the latest challenge to China’s zero-sum approach, after the chaotic lockdown in Shanghai ruined Beijing’s narrative that its handling of the pandemic was superior to that of other countries such as United States, which has recorded more than one million deaths from COVID.
Domestic visitors have kept the tourism industry alive in Hainan for much of the pandemic, but this sudden lockdown risks driving some tourists away forever.
Reuters
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