Coronavirus | China sees drop in imported cases

Many of them are students returning from other nations

Food for thought: A worker taking orders outside a bakery in Beijing on Monday.

Mainland China on Monday reported a drop in its daily tally of new COVID-19 cases , reversing four straight days of increases, as the capital, Beijing, ramped up measures to contain the number of infections arriving from abroad.

China had 39 new confirmed cases on Sunday, the National Health Commission said, down from 46 a day earlier. All the new ones involved travellers arriving from abroad, many of them Chinese students returning home.

Beijing stepped up measures to contain imported infections, diverting all arriving international flights from Monday to other cities, including Shanghai and as far west as Xian, where passengers will undergo virus screening.

Beijing reported 10 new imported cases, the National Health Commission said, down from 13 a day earlier. City authorities said cases came from Spain, Britain, France, the U.S. and Pakistan. Infections from abroad in Beijing hit an all-time daily high of 21 on March 18.

Shanghai and Guangzhou have also said all arriving international passengers will be tested to screen for the virus, expanding a programme that previously only applied to those coming from heavily affected countries.

In Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, authorities have eased tough lockdown measures as the city saw no new infections for the fifth day.

Downtown Wuhan remains the only high-risk area in Hubei province, with other cities and counties classified as low-risk.