Sanya: Over 80,000 tourists are stranded in “China’s Hawaii”- Sanya, ad ay after authorities cancelled all flights and trains amidst a sudden surge in the COVID-19 cases.
The city of more than a million people on the Southern Island of Hainan- a tourist spot reported 483 confirmed cases of coronavirus. On Saturday, the day when the authorities barred operations of all transport services- the island recorded 263 confirmed cases in a day.
Travellers must now present five negative PCR tests over seven days before being allowed to leave. As per the briefing, it is learnt that the hotels in the city have been asked to offer guests a 50 per cent discount until the travel restrictions ease.
Sanya is not the only city to have gone into lockdown in recent months. Around a million people in a suburb of Wuhan, the city in central China where Covid-19 was first recorded, faced fresh curbs last month after four asymptomatic cases were confirmed.
In June, meanwhile, Shanghai’s 25 million residents finally emerged from a strict-two-month lockdown.