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The capital Beijing accounted for nine of the imported new cases even as it imposed tough restrictions to screen out and isolate infections coming from abroad.

Beijing Capital International Airport has cordoned off a special zone for all international flights, with all disembarking passengers required to submit to health checks.

Transit passengers were sent to their connecting flights, while non-transit passengers were shuttled to a nearby processing venue from which they were dispatched to designated places for compulsory 14-day quarantine.

Beijing also closed its new Daxing airport to international flights and redirected them to the older Capital International Airport in the northeast of the city, in order to contain any new infections in one facility.

In the central city of Wuhan officials said they would begin requiring overseas arrivals to undergo 14-day quarantine at a central location at the people’s own cost, emulating Beijing.

Photo by Chinatopix via AP

Other cities in Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, are doing the same, as is Anhui province.

Wuhan, a transport and industrial hub of 11 million people, is the epicenter of China’s outbreak and the origin of the pandemic that has now infected more than 100,000 people beyond China’s borders.

Officials in the city initially tried to cover up the outbreak when it began late last year, but Beijing has lately sought to emphasize the positive role China has played in controlling the global spread of the disease.