BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s imported coronavirus cases have risen to a record 228, data showed on Friday, as infected travellers spread to ever more provinces, adding pressure on authorities to toughen entry rules and health protocols.
For a second day in a row, China found no domestically transmitted cases of the virus that emerged in its central province of Hubei late last year, according to new daily figures registered on Thursday.
Fears of a second wave of infections are growing just as China brings its epidemic under control, with the spread of the virus in Europe and North America spurring a rush homewards by Chinese expatriates, many of them students.
“The number of imported cases in China has further increased, and so the pressure to be on guard has also increased,” Wang Bin, an official of the National Health Commission, told a news conference in Beijing on Friday.
Mainland China had 39 new imported infections on Thursday, the commission said. Fourteen of these were in the southern province of Guangdong, eight in the commercial hub of Shanghai and six in the capital, Beijing, it said in a statement.
The main entrypoints for infected travellers have been key tr