The Ruili Dong highway tollbooth Photo: VCG

Southwest China's Yunnan Province announced it entered "wartime mode" on Saturday after two people, who illegally crossed into the border city of Ruili from Myanmar, were confirmed to have COVID-19.

The provincial government held a meeting on Saturday, during which officials said that the two cases rang alarms for them to plug this loophole in preventing COVID-19 spread in the border area. 

It also announced "wartime mode" for the whole province, vowing to mobilize the public, enhance joint border defense mechanism, and strengthen border controls. 

Citywide nucleic acid testing covering more than 280,000 people in Ruili, the border city in Yunnan Province on Saturday, has been completed with zero positive results returned, after the two cases reported last week.

Neither the close contacts of the confirmed cases nor other residents in the city were found to be infected with the novel coronavirus, authorities announced late Saturday, but the lockdown order has yet to be lifted.

The city was put on lockdown last Monday and that status is expected to last for at least a week.

The Ruili government tested a total of 287,254 residents, with all coming back negative. All the 201 close contacts of the confirmed patients are under medical observation and their nucleic acid tests were so far negative, Gong said.

The Yunnan provincial government has stepped up its efforts in epidemic prevention and control network near the border with Myanmar.On Saturday, Yunnan reported one asymptomatic infection who came to the province from Myanmar by plane. 

Ruili has passed a "24-hour" working mechanism in border prevention and control, which means that round the clock video inspection, control of key border areas, patrols and duty is in place.

As of Saturday afternoon, Ruili had impeded 114 illegal border routes, set up 502 border checkpoints and arranged for 3,122 people to take part in the border control mission, Gong said. Two law enforcement ships are also patrolling the river every day to stop any illegal border crossings.

Besides, the Ruili government will beef up cooperation with Myanmar in epidemic control and prevention.

As of Sunday, a total of eight imported cases and five asymptomatic infections in Yunnan were hospitalized and under medical observation.  

Global Times