(Yicai Global) March 23 -- All international flight passengers on their way to Beijing should prepare for additional stopovers, or even a 14-day quarantine in another Chinese city, Yicai Global learned from a passenger on Beijing's first flight that had been rerouted in the capital city's Covid-19 prevention efforts.

The passenger, a woman surnamed Sun who is now in quarantine in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, will need to also bear the cost of CNY350 (USD49) per day that goes toward paying for her hotel accommodation and meals. No outside deliveries are allowed.

Chinese authorities said yesterday that by midnight all international flights to Beijing will be rerouted through 12 cities, including northeastern Tianjin, Hebei's Shijiazhuang, Shanxi's Taiyuan, Shanghai, Shandong's Jinan, Qingdao, Jiangsu's Nanjing, Liaoning's Shenyang, Dalian, Henan's Zhengzhou, and Shaanxi's Xi'an. Since March 20, some flights had already started adding layovers.

Some 86 passengers on CA926, or more than 80 percent of the people on the same flight with Sun, are also in quarantine in the city almost 500 kilometers away from Beijing as the all the passengers coming from Tokyo were tested for the new coronavirus during the more than 12-hour layover. Only 19 passengers got to reschedule to get onto the next flight to Beijing. Sun didn't know why these people didn't need to stay in Hohhot. But their sense of freedom was likely to have been brief as on March 16, the capital city mandated centralized quarantines for all overseas arrivals.

Editor: Xu Wei, Emmi Laine