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Image Source : China Visual

BEIJING, August 17 (TMTPOST) -- Nearly 10,000 tourists have been stranded in Tibet for 11 days due to a long wait to get coronavirus test results, which are a requirement to leave the region.

According to the Tibet Tourism Bureau, as of last Wednesday, there were 574 tourist groups with 7,317 people, who had to stay in Tibet after Covid-19 control measures were in place.

Since last Monday, all seven cities and prefectures in Tibet have been hit hard by the virus in the wake of the detection of four positive cases in the Ali region. Rikaze city, Ali region, Lhasa city and Linzhi city have adopted "static management" measures. As of 14:00 on Tuesday, there were 186 confirmed cases and 1,983 asymptomatic infections in the Tibetan region, mainly concentrated in Lhasa and Rikaze city.

In the early hours of Tuesday, the Tibet Autonomous Region issued a notice that from 00:00 of the same day, stranded tourists must have a negative Covid-19 certificate after completing "two nucleic acid tests in three days," a health QR code with green color, and negative antigen tests at railway stations, airports or land chokepoints in order to leave Tibet. The problem stranded tourists now face is that nucleic acid test results come out too slowly.

Several tourists stranded in Tibet said that it is hard for them in Tibet to complete "two nucleic acid tests in three days" to get a negative certificate. They often wait a day or two to get the results. Some tourists even wait four days without results.

The Tibetan Statistical Yearbook 2021 shows that medical resources are uneven in Tibet, with the best medical services in Lhasa and the worst in Ali. The number of health technicians, physicians and registered nurses in Rikaze city is only half of that in Lhasa.

Under the coordination of the joint prevention and control mechanism of the State Council, hundreds of medical professionals and nurses from Jiangsu, Shanghai, Shandong, Guangdong, Beijing and other places arrived in Tibet last Tuesday, including experts in nucleic acid testing, epidemiological survey, rescue and treatment, as well as Covid-19 prevention and control in communities.