China has put its city of Ruili, which shares a border with Muse, on lockdown after two Myanmar citizens tested positive for COVID-19 there. China’s state-owned Global Times newspaper compared the lockdown to “wartime status,” describing a blanket stay-at-home-order and a ban on anyone entering or leaving the city. In addition, Chinese officials said they would “crack down on illegal border crossings,” the Global Times wrote.

Prolonged freeze on trade through the Muse crossing — the country’s busiest land trade portal — would be a disaster for Myanmar exporters. At the time of writing, it seems some goods from Muse are still passing into China via alternate roads, but most trade has been blocked, local merchants told the Myanmar Times. Since the start of the pandemic, exporters and producers, especially in agriculture, have suffered a slump as a result of tighter restrictions and reduced demand from China. Now, border trade is once again under threat, this time by an outbreak on the Myanmar side — which has, at the time of writing, resulted in more than 3000 new cases in recent weeks.

As border trade with its largest neighbor slumps due to the pandemic, Myanmar has shifted focus somewhat to other ASEAN nations, especially Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. However even Thailand has begun securing its borders against possible infection from the Myanmar side. Sophon Iamsirithavorn, director of Thailand’s Division of Communicable Diseases, recently told the Bangkok Post that his department feared the epidemic will “soon threaten the (Myanmar) eastern border.”