Reducing inter-city population flows
Quarantine measures have been implemented in other provinces that aim at restricting population mobility across cities and reducing the risk of importing infections22. Seven cities in Zhejiang, Henan, Heilongjiang, and Fujian provinces had adopted the partial shutdown strategy by February 4 (Fang et al. 2020)23. In Wenzhou, most public transportation was shut down, and traffic leaving the city was banned temporarily. On January 21, the Ministry of Transport of China launched level 2 responses to emergencies in order to cooperate with the National Health Commission in preventing the virus spread. On January 23, the Ministry of Transport of China, Civil Aviation Administration of China, and China State Railway Group Company, Ltd. (CSRGC) declared to waive the change fees for flight, train, bus, and ferry tickets that were bought before January 24. Later, the CSRGC extended the fee waiver policy to train tickets that were bought before February 6. By February 2, all railway stations in China had started to monitor body temperature of travelers when they enter and exit the station. Across the whole country, Transportation Departments set up 14,000 health checkpoints at bus and ferry terminals, at service centers and toll gates on highways, monitoring the body temperature of passengers and controlling the inflow of population (World Health Organization 2020b). Recent visitors to high COVID-19 risk areas are required to self-quarantine for 14 days at home or in designated facilities. On February 2, China’s Exit and Entry Administration temporarily suspended the approval and issuance of the travel permits to Hong Kong and Macau.
On January 23, Wuhan Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism ordered all tour groups to cancel travels to Wuhan. On January 27, the Ministry of Education of China postponed start of the spring semester in 2020, and on February 7, it further announced that students were not allowed to return to school campus without approvals from school.