Residents' cooperation key to contain virus

It is undoubtedly necessary to place an entire high-risk area under a tight quarantine given the risk of the novel coronavirus spreading to other areas.

Yet such essential containment measures may be undermined if some individuals flout the rules by traveling elsewhere without knowing whether they themselves are free from the virus.

Despite residents being prohibited from traveling anywhere else, three residents drove from the high-risk Gaocheng district in Shijiazhuang, capital of North China's Hebei province, to Jinzhou, another county in the province, without notifying the local epidemic prevention and control authorities.