New cases of Covid-19 are forcing authorities to impose sweeping measures again (Picture: Reuters)

Parts of China are said to be going back into shutdown after a flare-up of coronavirus hit the country’s northern border with Russia.

The frontier has been sealed and emergency medical units rushed to the area to prevent travellers from bringing the disease back from overseas. Members of a dog rescue group in the city of Harbin have stocked up on supplies, claiming restrictions are coming back into force.

While the pandemic originated in China, authorities in the country are now stricing to keep the virus out while other countries struggle to battle their own outbreaks. The long, porous border of Heilongjiang province and neighbouring Inner Mongolia has much less travel than major cities like Beijing and Shanghai. But it is a popular alternative route into the People’s Republic.



Many Chinese people live and work in Russia, where China has major investments encouraged by warm political ties. In a post on its Instagram account yesterday, Harbin based animal welfare group Slaughterhouse Survivors said: ‘And here we go again. Today things have started to close down. Walls have started to go up.’


Workers wait at a street corner for work in the city of Suifenhe following a coronavirus flare-up (Picture: Reuters)

New arrivals in China’s Heilongjiang are being forced into quarantine (Picture: Reuters)

Locals have said villages in the region might be cordoned off to prevent the spread of Covid-19 (Picture: Instagram/ slaughterhouse_survivors)

‘Restrictions are coming in place again. Tomorrow we move back to the safehouse. Apparently Heilongjiang (the Province we are in) has more cases. More than anywhere in China.

‘Goodbye sleep. Goodbye shower. Goodbye WiFi. Goodbye bed. Goodbye everything. Let’s see if round two breaks us!’

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The rescue group also shared a video with a delivery truck full of dog food, writing: ‘The word on the street was things are bad again here. So we started preparing earlier.

‘Thank god we did because it’s starting now. We ordered 8,100$ worth of dog food! All ready at the safehouse. So the dogs are gonna be ok.’

By Monday night, a field hospital was operating in the city of Suifenhe along the Russian border, equipped with a negative pressure lab to diagnose new cases.

A dog rescue group in the city of Harbin stocked up on supplies in anticipation of another lockdown (Picture: Instagram/ slaughterhouse_survivors)

Tight restrictions remain in place in Suifenhe (Picture: Reuters)

Business has fallen as fewer Russian visitors come from across the border (Picture: Reuters)

Staffed by 22 experts from the National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention under the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it will conduct nucleic acid tests and other forms of research to aid in virus control and prevention.

Officials say it is expected to allow city to perform up to 1,000 cases per day.

In Suifenhe, a city of just under 70,000, at least 243 of the 1,000 confirmed and suspected cases are thought to have been imported into the country.

More than 100 people in the area have tested positive for Covid-19 but showed no symptoms.

Recent arrivals from Russia account for nearly half of China’s imported cases.

National Health Commission expert Wang Bin said: ‘We are facing a truly grave situation in the north-east as represented by Suifenhe. Up to now our medical resources in the area have just not been sufficient.’

The CDC said the field hospital has been supplied with negative pressure tents, nucleic acid extractors, virus detection kits, throat swab sampling tubes and thermal cyclers used to enhance segments of DNA for scientists to study.



Roughly 800 miles north-east of Beijing, Suifenhe’s markets selling warm clothing, mobile phones and daily items usually do a thriving business with Russian visitors starved for choice on their side of the border.

That trade has gone quiet in recent weeks, dimming prospects for a sparsely populated region whose residents have been migrating to major cities in search of jobs and better living standards.

A man looks at a closed storefront following an outbreak of the coronavirus in Suifenhe (Picture: Reuters)

Medical workers are seen near the entrance at Suifenhe’s People’s Hospital (Picture: Reuters)

A worker from the city’s center for disease control and prevention takes a swab from a man to test for Covid-19 (Picture: Reuters)

Last week residents were ordered to stay indoors, with certain exceptions, and a 600-bed isolation hospital was built after workers spent six days converting a 13 storey building.

The lockdown was not as severe as the pandemic’s epicentre of Wuhan, Hubei province. One person per household is still allowed outisde to shop for essentials.

The city’s border was closed off to people but cargo was still allowed to come through.

Russia requires 14-day quarantines for all travellers arriving in Primorsky Krai and its regional capital Pogranichny across the border.

It has closed hotels to visitors and is requiring travellers to have a pass showing they are not carrying the virus. Russia closed its land border to travellers from China in January.

On the Chinese side, quarantines have been extended to a full month for people arriving by air in Suifenhe and in Heilongjiang’s capital, Harbin. All land border crossings were halted last week.

In a notice posted on Monday, China’s consulate in the Russian city of Vladivostok said they ‘strongly remind Chinese citizens not to summarily make trips to the border region’.

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