Thai health officers on Thursday disinfected the house of a family that tested positive for the coronavirus in Bangkok.
Photo: rungroj yongrit/ShutterstockGovernments trying to control the fast-spreading coronavirus are punishing residents and visitors accused of misleading health investigators, hiding key details about their activities and flouting quarantine orders.
Singapore this week charged a Chinese couple under the Infectious Diseases Act for giving false information about their movements. The city-state has also stripped people of their permanent-resident status and revoked foreigners’ work passes over virus-related infractions. Thai officials on Wednesday criticized an infected citizen who delayed telling authorities he had traveled to Japan and caused them to test dozens of others.
Countries in Asia are using a grab bag of tools to identify those who may have been exposed to the virus and impose limits on their movements. These have included in-depth interviews of sickened people, quarantines and stay-home directives for those returning from high-risk countries. But getting people to tell the truth or lock themselves in their homes isn’t easy.
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The Singapore case involves a Chinese man from Wuhan, where the global outbreak is believed to have started, who traveled to the city-state in January and later tested positive. His wife, who lives in Singapore, was quarantined, the Health Ministry said. Both were interviewed about the places they visited in the days before they were isolated and the people with whom they came into contact.
Identifying those people is central to Singapore’s virus-fighting strategy. Authorities said the two gave incorrect information about their whereabouts, which officials later uncovered. The case against them is scheduled to be heard in court on Friday. If convicted, they face prison terms of up to six months, fines of up to $7,150 or both.
Travellers waiting at Changi International Airport in Singapore on Thursday.
Photo: roslan rahman/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesThe couple couldn’t be reached to comment.
Singapore has taken other tough actions. Immigration authorities said on Wednesday that a 45-year-old man lost his permanent-resident status because he defied a stay-home notice issued to those who visited China in the two weeks before their entry. The man had recently been to China before his return to Singapore on Feb. 20 and was served the notice at the airport.
When enforcement personnel showed up at his house for checks, he wasn’t there, the immigration authority said in a statement. He was later seen at the airport trying to leave Singapore. Officers warned the man about his breach, but he insisted on leaving, the statement said. In response, the government revoked his residence status and barred him from returning to Singapore.
Authorities have also punished a number of foreigners working in the country. Earlier this month, they revoked the work passes of two people who had visited China and returned to Singapore without the government’s approval, which is required under new rules. They were permanently banned from working in Singapore.
Cleaners disinfect the Thai Parliament building in Bangkok on Thursday after a lawmaker had been in the room following a trip to Japan.
Photo: handout/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesIn Thailand, officials this week criticized a 65-year-old man for not being upfront and setting back the country’s containment efforts.
The man returned from Hokkaido in Japan on Feb. 20 and developed a fever, Dr. Sukhum Karnchanapimai, an official in the country’s Public Health Ministry, said Wednesday. He didn’t see a doctor until three days later, however, and mingled with members of his family, including his 8-year-old grandson. When he visited a hospital on Feb. 23, he was asked about any recent travels but didn’t disclose his Japan trip, according to B.Care Medical Center, which admitted him and began pneumonia treatment.
It wasn’t until the next day that he revealed he had been to Japan. The hospital gave him a test for coronavirus, which came back positive. That set off a broader hunt for family members and medical personnel he may have infected, said Dr. Karnchanapimai. The man’s wife, who had traveled to Japan with him, and his grandson, who had not, both tested positive.
Officials also tested dozens of children at the grandson’s school, which was closed down for 14 days, according to local authorities. Medical personnel and some passengers and crew on his flight from Japan were also tested. Ninety-seven people have so far tested negative, authorities said.
“I need to be straightforward, this action created a lot of trouble for everyone,” Anutin Charnvirakul, Thailand’s public health minister, said of the man’s lapses in reporting. “Everyone is working so hard to control the situation, but this is a setback.”
In Hong Kong, two residents were charged last week for violating quarantine rules. Under the rules, those who visited China in the two weeks before their entry into Hong Kong must self-quarantine for two weeks. That means they can’t step outside their homes or hotel rooms and are barred from leaving the city. The two men were stopped at border checkpoints trying to leave Hong Kong this month, according to a government spokeswoman.
If they are convicted, they face a maximum fine of $3,200 and up to six months in prison.
Officials in the city-state are relying on phone calls and spot checks to enforce quarantines. They are also using location-tracking wristbands that alert authorities when the person leaves their home, or damages or tampers with the device.
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China, which imposed quarantine measures over millions of people and entire cities as it fights the world’s biggest outbreak, has used its expansive law-enforcement powers and surveillance capabilities to enforce travel restrictions. In a recent case, Beijing has begun investigating a woman from Wuhan who slipped through that city’s lockdown and then the capital’s entry checkpoints despite having a fever. The woman has since been diagnosed with the Covid-19 virus, according to an official briefing Thursday.
In Taiwan, authorities in the capital, Taipei, said Tuesday that the city has fined 67 people who broke quarantine measures with fines ranging from $330 to $2,300. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen signed a law this week that increases the penalty for breaching quarantine restrictions to a maximum of $30,000.
In some circumstances, the rules are less clear. On Feb. 23, three days after Americans Matthew Smith and Katherine Codekas disembarked from the virus-struck Diamond Princess cruise ship, Japanese authorities issued a statement asking those who had been on board not to leave their homes unless it was for an important matter.
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The couple—who tested negative—didn’t see the public message, said Mr. Smith. They received separate guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to avoid crowded places and limit their activities in public.
The two continue to venture out once a day for a few hours, he said, including to a Vietnamese restaurant in Tokyo on Wednesday.
“The taxi driver is wearing a mask, we are all wearing masks,” Mr. Smith said. “If there was a risk, my overall impression is that I think I have more of a risk from catching it from out there than anyone from me.”
—Joyu Wang in Hong Kong, Suryatapa Bhattacharya in Tokyo and Liyan Qi in Beijing contributed to this article.
Write to Niharika Mandhana at niharika.mandhana@wsj.com and Wilawan Watcharasakwet at wilawan.watcharasakwet@wsj.com
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