CHINA has ramped up pandemic prevention and control efforts in its rural areas to cope with the heightened transmission risk that comes with the mass migration during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday season.

People must produce a negative result on a COVID-19 test taken within seven days before returning to rural areas for family reunions, said an official document posted online Wednesday by the National Health Commission.

Documentation or a health QR code that contains such a test result must be presented to the local village committee upon arrival, it added.

Such travelers then need to observe a 14-day home quarantine, monitoring their body temperatures and guarding against any symptom of COVID-19. During the 14-day quarantine period, they need to take a COVID-19 test every seven days.

They are urged to avoid unnecessary gatherings or local travel during their stay in rural areas and take proper hygiene and self-protection measures when they have to venture out.

The requirement applies to all trans-provincial travel as well as intra-provincial travel undertaken by people from prefectures or cities that administer areas with medium or high infection risks and those whose work involves handling imported frozen goods, among other groups with higher risks of exposure to the virus.

People who are directly from areas with medium or high infection risks are not allowed to migrate in principle.

The new rules will be in effect during the official period of the Spring Festival travel rush, which runs from Jan. 18 to March 8.

The Chinese mainland Wednesday reported 144 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 126 locally transmitted and 18 arriving from outside the mainland, the National Health Commission said Thursday.

Of the locally transmitted cases, 68 were reported in Heilongjiang, 33 in Jilin, 20 in Hebei, two each in Beijing and Shanxi, and one in Shandong, the commission said in its daily report.

Also, a residential neighborhood in Shanghai’s Huangpu District was categorized as a medium-risk area Thursday after three local residents were reported as confirmed cases Thursday morning, local health authorities said at a news briefing.

(Xinhua)