Epidemic Prevention Handbook for International Travelers to Jilin Province

 

 

Office of the Leading Group on COVID-19 Epidemic

Prevention and Control of Jilin Province

March 2020

 

 

What we know about COVID-19

 

Novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia, also known as COVID-19, refers to the disease caused by the 2019 novel coronavirus which is a kind of β-coronavirus.

The virus is sensitive to ultraviolet light and heat. Ether, 75% ethanol, chlorine-containing disinfectants, peracetic acid, chloroform or being at 56 ℃ for 30 minutes can effectively inactivate the virus.

So far, epidemiological investigation and research have the following findings concerning COVID-19 : the incubation period is 1 to 14 days, mostly 3 to 7 days; people who have been infected are the major infectious source; asymptomatic transmission is possible; transmission mainly takes place through respiratory droplets and close contacts; aerosol transmission is possible when people being exposed to high concentration aerosols for a long time in a relatively closed environment; other ways of transmission remain to be determined and the population is generally susceptible.

On January 20, 2020, the National Health Commission of China issued Notice No.1, in which novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia (later known as COVID-19) was defined as one of the B Class infectious diseases stipulated in the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, and the prevention and control measures adopted to contain it will be those for A Class infectious diseases. The Notice also brought novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia (COVID-19) under the management of quarantinable infectious diseases stipulated in the Frontier Health and Quarantine Law of the People's Republic of China.

  

Ⅰ. Preparation before Departure

 

1. You need to have a health check-up at local medical facilities before departure. When developing fever, cough, fatigue etc., you should avoid traveling and seek medical treatment early.

2. If you are in healthy condition, you need to contact the local authorities at destination 2 days before departure, either by yourself or by your relatives, friends or colleagues, providing truthful information including name, contacts, country of staying, date of traveling, means of transportation, health status etc.

3. You are recommended to learn in advance through consultation hot lines or internet, about the epidemic situation and requirements for prevention and control at both the transit places and destination.

4. You are recommended to carefully arrange your itinerary to avoid excessive transits or waiting time, and reduce contacts with others.

5. You need to know that you are required to fill in health declaration card issued by the Customs in advance. You can also scan the QR code at the top of the declaration card and complete it online.

6. At Jilin Province, you are asked to receive health education and be cooperative in our epidemic prevention and control work including receiving body temperature monitoring, medical inspection, and epidemiological investigation and so on. 

 

Ⅱ. What to Do on Board an Airplane and upon Arrival

 

1. If you are an international traveler to Jilin without any symptoms, you will be transported to designated places for a 14-day centralized quarantine and the expenses incurred during the quarantine time will be borne by yourselves. Only under special circumstances and after strict evaluation could you be quarantined at your own residence.

2. Cabin crew shall monitor the body temperature of all passengers on board. Once having fever, fatigue, dry cough etc., you should inform crew immediately for temporary isolation.

3. You shall fill in the health declaration card truthfully, completely and accurately before landing.

4. Upon arrival at the port, you shall accept quarantine measures taken by Custom staff such as temperature screening and disembark in an orderly manner as required.

5. You are required to declare your health status to the Customs in accordance with the law, and cooperate with the Customs to examine health declaration information, carry out infrared temperature screening and medical inspection and other quarantine measures.

6. You shall cooperate with the Customs for quarantine measures such as epidemiological investigation, medical investigation, sampling and testing in an orderly manner. If you have symptoms of the disease or need to be transferred after investigation, you shall cooperate with the Customs to be transferred to relevant local departments in accordance with the joint territorial prevention and control mechanism and be cooperative in the follow-up information tracking.

7. If you do not need to transfer to other place in Jilin province, you will be received by relevant departments and transferred to a designated place for centralized quarantine or at your own residence for isolation depending on the circumstances for 14 days.

8. If you travel to Jilin province by rail from another province of China, you should take instructions from the Jilin work team in that province and take the designated train to your destination in Jilin province. Upon arrival, you will be received by local staff and transferred to a designated place for centralized quarantine or at your own residence for isolation depending on the circumstances for 14 days.

  

Ⅲ. What to Do in Centralized Quarantine

 

1. All international travelers to Jilin will be transported to designated places for a 14-day centralized quarantine and bear by yourselves the expenses incurred during the quarantine time. Only under special circumstances and after strict evaluation could international travelers be quarantined at your own residence.

2. Closed management will be adopted at the places for quarantine. Please follow the quarantine regulations strictly. Do not leave your room without authorization or receive any family members. Do not visit others or gather at the quarantine places. Be cooperative in diagnosis and treatment work including body temperature check.

3. Keep your living environment clean. It is recommended to ventilate the room 2 to 3 times a day, each for more than 30 minutes. Keep warm during ventilation for not catching cold.

4. Maintain good personal hygiene. Wash your hands and clothes more frequently and drink more water. Wash your hands or use hand disinfectants before and after eating, after toilet use, and after touching potentially contaminated objects.

5. Cover your mouth and nose with your flexed elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze. Don’t spit on the floor. Discard used masks, tissues and other wastes properly.

6. Have a balanced diet and moderate exercises. If you get anxious, you can seek assistance from your family members or professional psychological personnel via video calls or telephone calls.

7. Inform the medical staff or person in charge of the quarantine place immediately and cooperate with them in further diagnosis and treatment procedures once you have the following symptoms: fever, dry cough, expectoration, stuffy nose, runny nose, sore throat, headache, fatigue, muscle soreness, joint soreness, shortness of breath, dyspnea, chest tightness, conjunctival congestion, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain etc.

  

Ⅳ. Legal Liability

 

● Law of the People's Republic of China on the Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases 

1. Article 12: All units and individuals within the territory of the People's Republic of China shall accept the preventive and control measures taken by institutions of disease prevention and control and medical institutions for investigation, testing, collection of samples of infectious diseases and for isolated treatment of such diseases, and they shall provide truthful information about the diseases. Institutions of disease prevention and controls and medical institutions shall not divulge any information or materials relating to personal privacy.

2. Article 16: The infectious disease patients, pathogen carriers and suspected infectious victims shall, before they are cured or cleared of suspicion, be barred from jobs which laws or administrative regulations or the health administration department under the State Council prohibit them from doing because of the likelihood of causing the spread of infectious diseases.

3. Article 41: With respect to the places where there are cases of infectious diseases under Class A or to the persons in the special areas within such places, the local people's governments at the county level or above where the above places are located may carry out isolation measures. 

4. Article 77: Where a unit or individual violates the provisions of this Law, thus leading to the spread and prevalence of infectious diseases or causing harm or property losses to another person, it/he/she shall bear civil responsibility according to law.

 

● Frontier Health and Quarantine Law of the People’s Republic of China

1. Article 7: Persons and conveyances on entering the country shall be subject to quarantine inspection at designated places at the first frontier port of their arrival. Except for harbor pilots, no person shall be allowed to embark on or disembark from any means of transport and no articles such as baggage, goods or postal parcels shall be loaded or unloaded without the health and quarantine inspector's permission.

2. Article 12: A person having a quarantinable infectious disease shall be placed in isolation by the frontier health and quarantine office for a period determined by the results of the medical examination, while a person suspected of having a quarantinable infectious disease shall be kept for inspection for a period determined by the incubation period of such disease.

3. Article 16: Frontier health and quarantine offices shall be authorized to require persons on entry or exit to complete a health declaration form and produce certificates of vaccination against certain infectious diseases, a health certificate or other relevant documents.

4. Article 20: A frontier health and quarantine office may warn or fine, according to the circumstances, any unit or individual that has violated the provisions of this Law by committing any of the following acts: (1) evading quarantine inspection or withholding the truth in reports to the frontier health and quarantine office; (2) embarking on or disembarking from conveyances upon entry, or loading or unloading articles such as baggage, goods or postal parcels, without the permission of a frontier health and quarantine office and refusing to listen to the office's advice against such acts.

5. Article 22: If a quarantinable infectious disease is caused to spread or is in great danger of being spread as a result of a violation of the provisions of this Law, criminal responsibility shall be investigated in accordance with the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China.

 

● Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China

1. Article 277 : Whoever by means of violence or threat, obstructs a functionary of a State organ from carrying out his/her functions according to law shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention, or public surveillance or be fined.

2. Article 330: Whoever, in violation of the provisions of the Law on Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, refusing to execute the preventive and control measures proposed by the health and anti-epidemic agencies according to the Law on Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases and thus causes the spread or a grave danger of the spread of an A Class infectious disease shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention; if the consequences are especially serious, he/she shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years.

3. Article 332: Whoever, in violation of the provisions on frontier health and quarantine, causes the spread or a grave danger of the spread of a quarantinable infectious disease shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention and shall also, or shall only, be fined.

 

Ⅴ. Tips for the Prevention and Control of the Epidemic

 

1.     Hand-washing

You need to wash your hands promptly upon returning home, before eating, after toilet use and after covering your mouth and nose with your hands when coughing or sneezing. Use running water and soap or hand sanitizer to wash your hands.

Why: A variety of diseases could be transmitted by hands. For example, digestive diseases transmission would take place when hands with germs touch food. Rubbing eyes would transmit red-eye disease, keratitis etc. Nose-picking would transmit respiratory diseases and so on.

● When do you need to wash your hands?

To avoid the hand-to-hand transmission of COVID-19, you need to pay more attention to hand-washing. The frequency depends on specific situations. Wash your hands promptly in any of the following situations: returning from outside; before putting on a mask and after taking off the mask; after contact with tears, snot, sputum and saliva; after covering cough and sneeze by hands; after nursing the patient; before preparing food and eating; after toilet use; after contact with public facilities (such as handrails, door handles, elevator buttons, coins, delivery parcels, etc.); before hugging or feeding children; after dealing with baby feces; after contact with animals or dealing with animal droppings.

● How to wash your hands correctly?

Correct hand-washing is one of the most direct and effective ways to reduce bacteria and viruses on the hands. When you wash your hands, use running water and soap or hand sanitizer and scrub your hands for more than 20 seconds. Make sure that all parts of your hands including palms, fingers, back of hands, between fingers, under fingernails, wrists are washed. When running water is not available, you can use alcohol-based hand sanitizer instead.

● Steps to wash your hands.

(1) Wet your hands with running water.

(2) Apply enough soap or hand sanitizer evenly covering all your hand surfaces.

(3) Scrub your hands carefully for at least 20 seconds.

Step one: rub hands palm to palm with fingers together.

Step two: right palm over the back of left hand with fingers interlaced and vice versa.

Step three: palm to palm with fingers interlaced to wash between fingers

Step four: rotational rubbing, backwards and forwards with clasped fingers of right hand in left palm and vice versa to wash the backs of fingers.

Step five: rotational rubbing of left thumb and vice versa to wash thumbs.

Step six: rotational rubbing, backwards and forwards with all fingers of right hand in left palm and vice versa to wash the ends of fingernails.

Step seven: rotational rubbing left wrist with right hand and vice versa to wash wrists.

(4) Rinse your hands with running water.

(5)Turn off the faucet only after it is rinsed with the water held by your hands (if you use inductive faucet, skip this step).

(6) Dry your hands with clean towels, tissues, or a dryer.

● What to do when it is not convenient to wash your hands?

You could use alcohol-based quick-dry hand disinfectant instead. And under special circumstances, you could also use chlorine or hydrogen peroxide hand disinfectants.

Apply enough hand disinfectant to cover the surfaces of palms, backs of hands, under fingers, wrists, etc. Then rub your two hands against each other until the disinfectant gets evaporated.

 

2. Wearing a mask

● How to wear a surgical mask?

Put the darker side of the mask outward and the side with a nose clip upward; pull the fold-up and cover your mouth, nose and chin; adjust the nose clip to fit your nose thus reduce gapping.

● How to wear a protective respirator?

Take KN95 (N95) respirator as an example: the marked side is outward, and the side with a metal clip is upward; tie the bands or wrap the elastic bands around your ears to reduce gapping. If you want to use it repeatedly, fold it after use and put it in an exclusive plastic bag with desiccant in.

● How to deal with used masks?

(1) Masks wore by healthy people can be disposed in accordance with the requirements of waste classification.

(2) Masks wore by home quarantine observers may contain virus. They should be disinfected with chlorine-based disinfectants, before encapsulated in plastic bags and put into the dustbin.

(3) Masks worn by suspected or confirmed cases should be regarded as medical waste and be disposed strictly according to the relevant procedures of medical waste.

 

3. Seeking for medical treatment

●If you have clinical symptoms such as fever, dry cough and fatigue, does it mean you contract COVID-19?

Many respiratory diseases can cause symptoms such as fever, dry cough, fatigue etc. Diagnose will be made based on comprehensive information including the patient’s previous activities (whether the patient has been exposed to suspected or confirmed cases), clinical symptoms and laboratory test results. Therefore, do not panic when you develop such symptoms, prepare self-protection and seek for medical treatment early.

●Under what circumstances does one need to seek medical treatment?

Meeting the following two conditions at the same time, one should report to the medical and health organization in time, and be cooperative in relevant check and diagnosis procedures:

(1) Has respiratory symptoms such as fever (armpit temperature over 37.3 ℃), dry cough or digestive tract symptoms such as diarrhea.

(2) Within the past 14 days, traveled to or lived in a domestic community where confirmed cases have been reported, or a high-risk area/country; or had contact with confirmed cases (those who are tested positive for COVID-19); or had contact with people with fever or respiratory symptoms from other domestic community where confirmed cases have been reported, or a high-risk area/country. Or involves in a clustering case (refers to the situation that within 14 days, 2 or more cases have been reported to have fever and/or respiratory symptoms in a small area, such as home, office, school class, workshop, etc.).

 

4. Maintaining mental health

The epidemic may cause psychological stress such as anxiety and nervousness. The public need to pay attention to their mental health, to reduce the epidemic’s psychological interference and possible harm, and promote social stability.

(1) Refer to the epidemic news and scientific protection tips from authoritative media. Live a regular life. Moderate exercises, books and music may also help.

(2) Don’t be over-stressed. Facing the epidemic, it is natural to have emotions such as fear, tension and anxiety.

(3) Have proper mental adjustment. You can talk to others via phone calls or video calls, encourage each other and divert attention from the epidemic. Be positive to work and life. Ensure enough time of having rest, be comfort and self-motivated. You can also relax yourself by breath training, aerobics and meditation. Please avoid being evasive, impulsive, bad temper, or relying too much on others, blaming or complaining others. Reduce coffee intake, especially do not try to relieve tension by taking tobacco or alcohol.

 

Ⅵ. Hotlines

 

● Emergency Contact of Jilin Foreign Affairs Office

SUN Xiaoyu   13596479838 (English)

PENG Yao     15943095650 (Japanese)

LU Shuang     13500880151 (Korean)

HUANG Yuedi  1556823053 (Russian)

 

● Jilin Province Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese

JIN Shu  13039001978

 

● Changchun Customs Administration

0431-12360

 

● Airport

96665 (Changchun); 0433-2237058, 2234433 (Yanji)

 

● 24-hour hotline for epidemic prevention and control in Jilin province

0431-12320

 

● 24-hour psychological counseling service in Jilin province

0431-12320-6 (Jilin Province)

0434-5079510, 5079511, 5079512, 5079513 (Brain Hospital of Jilin Province)

0431-82708315, 89685000, 89685333 (Changchun No.6 Hospital)