The Information Office of the Autonomous Region Government held the forty-fourth news release of the COVID-19 Epidemic Prevention and Control Headquarters.

On March 18th, the Information Office of the Autonomous Region Government held the forty-fourth press conference of COVID-19 Epidemic Prevention and Control Headquarters. Li Bingsheng, deputy director of the Public Security Department of the Autonomous Region, and Jiang Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Center for Comprehensive Disease Control and Prevention of the Autonomous Region, answered questions from reporters about the prevention and control of epidemic situation of overseas returnees.

Reporter: Please tell us what measures the autonomous region has taken to deal with the risk of overseas import. How many overseas personnel, Chinese overseas Chinese and international students have returned to Inner Mongolia? What is the daily traffic?

Li Bingsheng:At present, the situation of epidemic prevention and control in China continues to improve. There have been no new cases in our region and many provinces in China for several days, but the spread of overseas epidemic has accelerated. Recently, Chinese overseas students and migrant workers have a strong desire to return to China, and the risk of importing overseas epidemic has become the biggest risk at present. The situation is complex, the task is arduous and the pressure has suddenly increased.

I have a set of data here: according to the data of immigrants pushed by the National Immigration Bureau and the comparative analysis of civil aviation, airports, railways and other information, from 0: 00 on March 1 to 24: 00 on March 16, the data of people entering our region was 2,420, and from March 1 to 13, the average daily flow was about 110. From March 14th to 17th, the average flow was about 200 people. Through the action of "attacking and clearing No.4", the public security organs in the whole region have implemented verification and control measures for all the immigrants entering our region through big data+community arrangement and tracking one by one, and conducted centralized isolation medical observation and home isolation medical observation.

Judging from the above data, the risk of importing overseas epidemic is still very high. Therefore, in order to effectively prevent the spread of COVID-19 epidemic and effectively protect people’s health and life safety, according to the Law of People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases and the relevant requirements of the State Council’s joint prevention and control mechanism for COVID-19 epidemic, on March 15, the COVID-19 Epidemic Prevention and Control Command of Inner Mongolia issued the Announcement on Preventing the Import of Overseas Epidemic, which put forward requirements for the implementation of information declaration, centralized isolation and enhanced security for overseas personnel from Inner Mongolia, and strengthened the prevention of overseas epidemic.

In terms of specific social control, we will focus on the following aspects:

First, further strengthen the early warning of big data judgment and earnestly implement various closed-loop prevention and control measures for inbound transshipment.

First, we must predict the early warning in advance. The social control group has set up a special big data class to integrate and share the data information of border inspection, airports, railways, foreign affairs and other departments, and strive to predict every person who enters our region in advance and push it to Union City and Qixian County in time. All Union cities should also set up a special big data class to monitor daily, make further judgment and analysis, make the situation of every person who enters Mongolia more accurate, move forward to the prevention and control gate, report upwards, push in parallel and deploy downwards in a three-pronged manner. Make sure that there is no leakage and no dead angle.

The second is to carry out a major investigation of immigrants. In accordance with the requirements of the prevention and control headquarters of COVID-19, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the object of centralized isolation shall cover all overseas returnees. At present, the big data special class is sorting out all the people who have entered Mongolia since March 1, and all the allied cities should immediately organize a comprehensive investigation of the returned overseas people within their jurisdiction, and all the returned overseas people within 14 days since March 1 should implement centralized isolation or home isolation measures as required. Public security organs at all levels should investigate and deal with those who deliberately conceal the history of living abroad and fail to report to the local authorities as required.

The third is to coordinate linkage and closed-loop prevention and control. The Public Security Department and the Health and Health Commission have sent competent leaders and special personnel to co-ordinate the transshipment and safety protection of airports in Beijing and the autonomous region. All localities and departments should strengthen coordination and linkage, keep a close eye on entry, transshipment, entry into the zone and other links, adhere to the integration of online and offline, integration within and outside the zone, secure the customs at all levels, hand-to-hand handover step by step, and ensure that the whole process is known and controllable.

Two, strictly implement the centralized isolation, home isolation prevention and control measures.

According to the requirements of the autonomous region, people who come to our region from countries with serious epidemics such as Japan, South Korea, Italy and Iran are all concentrated in medical observation; People from other countries, except those who have the conditions of single-person home isolation, will be centralized and isolated for medical observation. All persons entering Mongolia must truthfully declare and register their identity information, local address, contact telephone number, itinerary within 14 days, health status, entry purpose and other information. Among them, the most worrying thing is the link of home isolation and community prevention and control. We should vigorously promote the "big data+grid" community policing work, speed up the construction of community full-time and part-time grid workers and other group defense forces, deepen the construction of smart security communities and safe communities, firmly hold the forefront of community prevention and control, and all localities should maximize their strength into communities, compact their responsibilities and strictly implement relevant requirements.

For those who really need to be isolated at home, they must apply to the community and conduct on-the-spot verification procedures at the county headquarters to ensure that they have fixed housing, can meet the conditions of living alone, and meet the standards of medical isolation, before they can take 14-day medical observation measures of single-person home isolation. The territory should implement the one-to-one management and service guarantee measures of one person, one special class and one person, one program.

The social prevention and control group should grasp all the measures in all aspects in a down-to-earth manner, tightly and tightly, carefully and carefully, resolutely ensure that no one is allowed to enter Mongolia without being discovered before, and that no one is allowed to enter Mongolia without being isolated, and no case of imported cases from abroad will form an epidemic spread incident, resolutely build an overseas epidemic import defense line, and win the epidemic prevention and control people’s war, general war and blocking war in an all-round way.

Here, we hope that those who arrive in Inner Mongolia from abroad will strictly abide by the above regulations and actively cooperate with relevant departments to prevent and control the epidemic. At the same time, we also hope that the broad masses of the people will widely publicize and implement our social prevention and control measures.　

　　　　　　 Reporter: At present, there is a lot of information on the Internet about overseas returnees hiding their illness, disobeying quarantine management and affecting epidemic prevention and control. Has this happened in our region? What measures will the relevant departments take in response to such behavior? What shall we do if it is a foreign nationality?

Li Bingsheng:As this reporter said, in recent days, overseas returnees did conceal their illness, disobey isolation management, and affect epidemic prevention and control. On March 12th, Genghis Khan police station in Xincheng District of Hohhot found that Zhao and Shamou (sisters), residents of a residential area in Xincheng District of Hohhot, had close contact with Guo Moupeng, a confirmed patient of Zhengzhou’s new type of coronary pneumonia, during their flight entry from Turkey via Abu Dhabi on March 7th. Zhao and Shamou deliberately concealed their exit history after returning, and did not strictly implement the measures of "isolated observation" and "truthful declaration". During this period, they were free to move around the community for many times and went out to eat in restaurants, which caused the spread of COVID-19 epidemic. At present, the Public Security Bureau of Xincheng District of Hohhot has filed a case investigation against Zhao and Shamou on suspicion of obstructing the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, and the disease control department has taken compulsory isolation observation measures against them.

In response to this kind of behavior, on March 16th, the Supreme Law, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Justice and the General Administration of Customs jointly issued the Opinions on Further Strengthening Frontier Health and Quarantine Work and Punishing Illegal Crimes that Impede Frontier Health and Quarantine according to Law, sorting out six kinds of behaviors that may be convicted and imprisoned, including refusing to implement health and quarantine measures such as health declaration, body temperature monitoring, medical inspection and epidemiological investigation, concealing the epidemic situation by not filling in health declaration cards truthfully, and means of entry and exit transportation.

Some immigrants are lucky enough to take various measures to refuse to declare, or fail to truthfully declare their health status and cooperate with body temperature monitoring; There are also some immigrants who know that they have developed symptoms such as fever and dry cough, or have been to areas with serious epidemics, deliberately concealing the incidence and overseas travel history. Some people even took antipyretic drugs to lower their body temperature and cover up their fever symptoms, and got away with it in the customs health and quarantine. After entering the country, they were diagnosed as COVID-19, which led to people who were in close contact with them being infected or observed in isolation, posing great risks to public health and safety. According to the provisions of the Criminal Law and the newly issued Opinions, the above acts can be convicted and punished for "the crime of obstructing frontier health and quarantine" in accordance with the provisions of Article 332 of the Criminal Law.

At the same time, on March 15th, the COVID-19 Epidemic Prevention and Control Command of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region issued the Announcement on Preventing the Import of Outbreaks from Abroad, which also made it clear that public security organs at all levels should investigate and deal with those who deliberately conceal the history of living abroad and fail to report to the local authorities as required. The circular also stressed that all immigrants should abide by the relevant regulations on the prevention and control of local epidemic situation during their stay in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and those who refuse to cooperate with the prevention and control measures of epidemic situation will be investigated for legal responsibility according to law. All the immigrants mentioned here, including foreign nationals.

Reporter: Please tell us how to isolate and resettle overseas returnees.

Jiang Xiaofeng:In order to control the source of infection to the maximum extent, cut off the route of transmission, and effectively prevent the risk of imported COVID-19 epidemic from abroad, Inner Mongolia strictly implemented the relevant measures and regulations for epidemic prevention and control of overseas returnees during the epidemic period, comprehensively and meticulously grasped the basic information, entry time, passing ports, vehicles and physical health status of the inbound personnel, and implemented remote monitoring, entry screening, classified management, problem finding, timely disposal and scientific prevention and control.

　　　　　　　With regard to entry screening, people with fever and other symptoms and their close contacts found in entry wear disposable medical protective masks, conduct epidemiological investigation independently and collect samples for testing. After completing the entry frontier inspection procedures, the entry frontier inspection station will dock with the local epidemic prevention and control headquarters, and conduct investigation, diagnosis and treatment and close contact management as required. The rest of the staff carried out epidemiological investigation, sample collection, testing and entry-related procedures as required. All entry personnel should consciously abide by the relevant provisions of the state, autonomous regions and territories on epidemic prevention and control, and consciously accept inspection and quarantine, isolated observation and other prevention and control measures.