China is tense because it is on the alert for a possible coronavirus outbreak in Heilongjiang Province, a big province that borders Russia.
From April 4 to April 8, the official count included a report of 118 infection cases in Heilongjiang. All were Chinese people who had returned from Russia. China announced that, since then, it had closed all border checkpoints that were on the land between China and Russia. Suifenhe City, Heilongjiang Province, a main city on the border with Russia, built a modular hospital with 600 beds and would start to put it in use on April 11.
Li Keqiang stressed at a meeting of the Central Epidemic Prevention and Control Leader Group that China would send people from other provinces to help the bordering cities and regions on their testing and treating of the epidemic.
(Editor’s Note: There was a report that Russia was sending 1.5 million Chinese back to China, but it was not clear whether, after China closed the border, these people had made it into China or were still in Russia.)
Epoch Times reported that it obtained a copy of a “Notice on Treatment Plan for Confirmed Cases and Asymptomatic Cases of People Entering from Suifenhe City,” that the Heilongjiang Health Commission had issued on April 8.
The Notice said that the whole province prepared 4,530 patient beds in three regions. One region, the combination of Mudianjiang City and Suifenhe City, had 1,230 beds. The other two regions are Jixi City and Harbin City. If the patients exceed the capacity of the Mudianjiang-Suifenhe region, the other two regions must ensure they can start accepting patients in three days.
The Notice also asked local governments and hospitals to form medical support teams and virus control support teams: eight cities and hospitals were each to form a 100-member medical team, four cities each were to form a 50-member medical team, and five cities were each to each form a 20-member virus control team. It asked that the names of the people in those teams be reported by April 9.
However, since China reported only over 100 infections in Heilongjiang, Epoch Times asked what the need is for the 4,530 beds? It mentioned one possibility, which is an internal outbreak in the province. Heilongjiang showed a high alert about asymptomatic infection back in February. On February 23, the Heilongjiang Epidemic Prevention and Control Center issued a “Notice on the Management of Asymptomatic Carriers of Novel Coronavirus in Heilongjiang Province.”
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