From the
Financial Times:
Rise of imported cases prompts officials to tighten restrictions on new arrivals
The number of coronavirus cases has spiked across Asia, crushing hopes that the region had contained the outbreak. Officials in South Korea, Taiwan and parts of China and south-east Asia are rushing through new measures after a second wave of new infections following weeks of declines.
Experts say the sudden increase in cases has revealed the limits of both China’s sweeping lockdown of citizens and of the massive public testing and social distancing campaigns rolled out across Asia. But it also highlights growing anxieties about new cases coming from abroad. The number of so-called imported infections has risen sharply as people flee the escalating coronavirus outbreak in Europe.
“What many people hadn’t recognised is that it is only a temporary success, it is not a permanent success,” said Ben Cowling, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong. “There is a challenge to containment by the increasing number of imported infections in all of these locations at the moment from Europe, but in the future it could be from other parts of the world as well,” he added.
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In South Korea, which has suffered Asia’s worst outbreak outside China, the emergence of new clusters and the risk of imported cases has rattled officials. Authorities in Daegu — South Korea’s fourth-largest city where mass testing and isolation had led to a big reduction in new cases — are now increasing inspections at high-risk facilities after the emergence of new clusters at nursing homes and churches. “We believe the next two to three weeks will be very crucial,” said Yoon Tae-ho, a senior government health official.
Taiwan is closing its borders to practically all foreigners and intensifying quarantine measures on its own citizens. The moves come after officials accelerated efforts this week to identify and test Taiwanese citizens who had travelled abroad and seen a doctor for flu-like symptoms on their return.
In Hong Kong, the number of cases climbed to 168 on March 17 from 116 on March 9, and almost 90 per cent of those new patients had travelled recently. Health officials reported 14 new cases on Wednesday, the highest registered in a single day and all but one came from overseas. Overseas students have rushed home as the virus spread across Europe.