Mongolia has placed its capital, Ulaanbaatar under lockdown, as the country recorded its first locally-transmitted Covid-19 case since the start of the pandemic.
The capital was placed under three-day restrictions starting from Wednesday after a truck driver delivering goods from Russia and his wife tested positive for Covid-19. The results came after the couple had spent 21 days in quarantine.
The government also ordered several checkpoints at the northern border with Russia closed down.
Twenty-four people who came into close contact with the driver were tested and isolated. Officials urged everyone who was at a concert that the infected couple attended to get tested as well.
Mongolia’s State Emergency Commission reported later on Wednesday that two more of the man’s relatives tested positive.
The new cases mark Mongolia’s first domestic coronavirus transmission since the start of the pandemic. The sparsely-populated landlocked nation previously only had imported Covid-19 cases. Mongolia moved to quickly close its southern border with China in late January when the world’s first outbreak of the novel coronavirus occurred in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Mongolia so far has only had 376 Covid-19 cases and no deaths.
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