BEIJING — People infected with quarantinable infectious diseases or suspected epidemic victims who refuse to receive isolated observation or fail to truthfully fill out their health declaration forms at border checkpoints, such as international airports, in China, could face criminal penalties, according to a guideline made public on March 16.

The guideline was jointly released by the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Justice and the General Administration of Customs amid the country's efforts to strengthen quarantine measures to guard against imported COVID-19 cases.

The guideline listed six kinds of behaviors that could constitute the crime of impairing frontier quarantine measures, targeting individuals who spread or risk spreading a quarantinable infectious disease identified by the State Council, including plague, cholera, yellow fever and COVID-19.