(TibetanReview.net, Aug18’22) – Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) appeared to have had the second highest asymptomatic daily new Covid-19 cases in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on Aug 17, going by the official Xinhua news agency’s latest report on the pandemic Aug 18. Citing the National Health Commission, the report said a total of 2,810 local asymptomatic carriers were newly identified throughout the PRC on Aug 17, including 1,522 in the worst-hit Hainan, 870 in TAR and 224 in Xinjiang.
The commission has also said a total of 614 locally-transmitted confirmed (ie, symptomatic) cases were reported throughout the PRC on that day, of which 496 were in Hainan Province. The report did not mention the number of symptomatic cases in the TAR.
The day before, Xinhua cited the commission as saying a total of 566 locally-transmitted had been confirmed on Aug 16, of which 482 were in Hainan province. That report also did not give the figure for TAR.
The report also said that altogether 2,322 local asymptomatic carriers were newly identified throughout the PRC on that day, including 1,181 in Hainan, 670 in TAR and 307 in Xinjiang.
An official chinadaily.com.cn report Aug 17 said that of the two locally transmitted asymptomatic cases detected outside quarantine zones in Shanghai city on Aug 17, one was a 33-year-old female living in Huangpu district who had returned from Lhasa, Tibet, on Aug 14.
Another chinadaily.com.cn report Aug 17 cited officials in Beijing as saying that residents who had been to higher-risk areas, including the provinces of Hainan, Qinghai and Shaanxi, or TAR, or Xinjiang, should report to their residential communities, hotels or workplaces for epidemic prevention measures.
Meanwhile, hundreds of vehicles were stuck on a state highway in TAR after the neighboring province of Yunnan denied entry to people traveling from the Covid hotspot, saying its quarantine system had reached capacity, causing a four-mile traffic jam, reported the bloomberg.com Aug 18.
The report said Police in Tibet’s Markam county had issued an urgent notice on Aug 16, asking travelers to avoid leaving the region via a highway that leads to Yunnan, as well as another one that goes to Sichuan. Quarantine rooms in areas across the provincial borders are full and people had become stranded on the road leading up to the checkpoint, it said.