China Deems People Almost a Kilometer Apart as ‘Close Contacts’
- Infections continue to mount, with 65 new local cases Monday
- Beijing remains committed to keeping the coronavirus out
Covid-19 testing at a residential block at night in Chengdu, Sichuan Province on Nov. 5.
Photographer: Zhang Lang/China News Service/Getty Images
The definition of a close contact is getting broader in China, where authorities hunting down every potential Covid-19 infection now consider people who are far away and virtually unknown to each other as potentially at risk.
People who happen to be in the same general area at about the same time as a person who is found to be infected may need to be tested or even quarantined, according to notices issued by local health authorities. The “spacial-temporal overlap,” a term mentioned frequently by Chinese officials, means people don’t actually have to be in direct contact with a Covid case to be impacted. Simply overlapping with someone carrying the virus is enough.