【明報專訊】As several COVID-19 cases by community transmission have broken out in Guangzhou, the number of medium-risk areas has increased to seven. The source of the cases is foreign-related. 90% of inbound passengers arrive in China through Guangzhou every day. Nearly 30,000 people are kept in quarantine every day in more than 300 quarantine points manned by as many as 20,000 staff. The result of a minor error in such high-risk operations can be catastrophic. Over the past two months, there has been a surge of cases in China's neighbouring countries caused by some complicated variants. But these countries' mechanisms against the virus are highly inadequate. Besieged by viruses coming from these countries, China is under a lot of pressure. What can be done now is to ratchet up measures against imported cases, while the long-term plan is to help China's neighbouring countries improve their anti-pandemic capabilities.