Over 80,000 tourists stranded by COVID restrictions in China's Hainan

Another 259 new COVID 19 cases have been reported in the southern Chinese island province of Hainan, where some 80,000 tourists have been stranded by the pandemic restrictions.

In the whole of last year, the island in the South China Sea recorded just two positive symptomatic cases. The number of cases has gone up since the beginning of the month.

Hainan's beach resort city of Sanya was declared a COVID 19 hotspot and imposed a lock down, confining Chinese citizens and expatriates to their hotels on what they hoped would be a holiday from tight restrictions around much of China.

Tourists who want to leave Sanya have to test negative for COVID 19 on five PCR tests over seven days.

The Chinese businesswoman Yang Jing, along with her husband and child, was among the stranded.

The family has been stuck in a four-star hotel while they have to stay in a four-star hotel, which has been paid out of their own pocket.

They have been eating pot noodles every day to avoid spending more on food.

Ms Yang, who is in her 40 s and lives in Jiangxi province in southern China, said this is the worst holiday of my life.

Sanya reported between August 1 and August 7 689 symptomatic and 282 asymptomatic cases. More than a dozen cases have been reported in the same period in other cities around Hainan province, including Danzhou, Dongfang, Lingshui, and Lingao.

The sale of rail tickets out of Sanya was suspended on Saturday, according to state broadcaster CCTV, and more than 80 per cent of flights to and from Sanya had been cancelled, according to data provider Variflight.

Sanya authorities have said that stranded tourists can leave the island starting next Saturday, provided they have done five COVID tests and obtained negative results for all of them.

Ms Yang said that the waiting times for test results had been long, prompting her to get multiple tests a day.

The internet only has positive news about Sanya, such as the Sanya municipal government has properly resettled the 80,000 stranded tourists, as if the whole country thinks we are not victims, but beneficiaries, she said.

Stranded tourists say they're not being taken seriously.

Since China stopped issuing tourist visas and implemented strict quarantine rules in response to the Pandemic, Hainan has been closed to overseas tourists for the past two-and-a-half years.

Sanya's government announced on Saturday that tourists who had had their flights cancelled would be able to book hotel rooms at half price.

Hundreds of tourists complained on Sunday that their hotels were not applying such a rule and they had to pay rates similar to the original prices, according to WeChat groups.

Two stranded tourists told Reuters they were in such a situation. A woman from the eastern China province of Jiangsu, who gave her surname as Zhou, said that we are now looking for ways to complain and defend our rights, but so far no official body has taken any interest in us.

China reported 324 new locally transmitted cases on Monday, along with 483 asymptomatic cases that China classifies separately.

Despite the economic and social costs, China has stuck to a zero-COVID policy.

It credited the policy with keeping hospitalisation and death rates lower than in other countries that have opened up amid high vaccine rates, more effective treatments and the emergence of the more contagious but less lethal strain of the virus.

The outbreak in Hainan is the latest challenge to China's zero-COVID approach after the chaotic lockdown in Shanghai denied Beijing's narrative that it was superior to other countries like the United States, which has recorded over a million COVID deaths.

Domestic visitors have kept the tourism industry on Hainan alive during much of the Pandemic, but this sudden lockdown risks turning some tourists away for good.