Shanghai officials further clarified Thursday that local residents, expatriates and people who have stayed in the city for six months or longer must undergo quarantine for two weeks at home or a designated place if they return to the city from any "SARS hard-hit region."
Visitors arriving from these regions must allow the hotels they are staying in or the neighborhood committees responsible for their temporary residences to take their temperature twice a day, fill in a daily health record form, and keep track of their whereabouts.
The city government suggests people check the Websites of the World Health Organization and the Ministry of Health for daily up-date on "hard-hit regions."
At a press conference on Wednesday, city officials named 11 hard-hit regions. They were Hong Kong, Taiwan, Beijing, Tianjin, Inner Mongolia, provinces of Guangdong, Shanxi and Hebei in China and Singapore, the Philippines and Toronto in Canada.
On its Website, WHO post-ed an article on Wednesday, changing the status of Toronto. The article said that Toronto has been removed from the list of areas for which WHO has issued recommendations pertaining to international travel.
"We don't require travelers and visitors to be isolated during their stay in Shanghai if they do not develop flu-like symptoms," explained Yang Guoqiang, director of the Municipal Foreign Affairs Office, Thursday.
(eastday.com May 16, 2003)
