Coronavirus scare prompts countries to raise entry controls for Chinese nationals

With the number of infected people rising every day and more countries reporting cases of infections of the coronavirus 2019-nCoV, some jurisdictions and travel companies have started to enforce measures aiming to contain the virus propagation.

The United Kingdom’s flag carrier British Airways (BA) has decided to suspend all flights between the U.K. and China in light of the virus outbreak.

“We have suspended all flights to and from mainland China with immediate effect following advice from the Foreign Office against all but essential travel,” BA said in a statement released in the early hours of Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the U.K.’s Foreign Office had issued a statement warning all British nationals against traveling to mainland China “in all but essential cases.”

In the same statement, the ministry made clear that the warning was not including the two Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau but was specially directed to the “worst-affected Hubei Province.”

“If you’re in this area and able to leave, you should do so,” the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said, adding, “Due to increasing travel restrictions and difficulty accessing medical assistance, the FCO is working to make an option available for British nationals to leave Hubei Province.”

According to the company’s website BA operates direct flights from London Heathrow to Beijing and Shanghai. These flights have been made unavailable for online bookings.

The BA move comes a day after the North America’s United Airlines (UAL) announcement of a temporary reduction in the number of flights between the United States and three cities in China, this time adding Hong Kong to the previously mentioned two mainland cities.

UAL said in a statement that the decision to reduce the number of schedules available was due to a “significant decline in demand” which led to a suspension of a total of 24-round trips from February 1 through February 8 and affecting destinations in the U.S. such as San Francisco, Washington Dulles, Chicago O’Hare and Newark.

Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific also informed that, for the same reasons, it will reduce the capacity of flights to and from mainland China by half or more until the end of March.

Many other countries and regions have in the past few days taken measures to attempt to contain the virus by not allowing either Chinese citizens or residents or people arriving from Hubei Province to enter the territory.

North Korea was one of the first, announcing on January 27 to have closed its borders to all Chinese nationals.

On Tuesday, the government of the Philippines announced a temporary suspension of issuing visas upon arrival for Chinese nationals amid concerns of a coronavirus outbreak.

Malaysia has suspended all visa facilities for Chinese tourists from Wuhan and Hubei Province as well as neighboring provinces in China as part of its measure to combat the 2019-nCoV.

Kazakhstan also suspended the regime of a 72-hour visa-free stay in Kazakhstan for transit passengers from China. A measure that had been announced a few weeks earlier and that should be valid through the all year of 2020. On Monday, the Kazakh Prime minister announced that the measure would be suspended with immediate effect and until July 1, 2020.

Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, France, Myanmar, Italy, United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka, Australia are among other country that have started to require all Chinese nationals complete a health declaration form to ascertain that they have not been infected or in contact with people infected by 2019-nCoV.

The city-state of Singapore has enforced a ban on Chinese nationals who visited Hubei Province within the 14 days prior to their arrival in Singapore, stopping also the issuing of any new visas to people from Hubei to transit in Singapore.

As of Wednesday evening, a total of 19 countries and regions have reported cases of the new coronavirus that has infected almost 6,200 people and killed over 130.

Renato Marques