It was amusing to see Zhong Shuang juggling an orange, a kiwi fruit and a small sweet melon in her quarantined hotel room on Friday.

"If I knew I could practice an old trick here, I would have saved more oranges" from my lunch, said the marketing chief of a local software firm, her facemask on.

Zhong is among the more than 200 Chinese and overseas passengers quarantined in Guomen Hotel in Beijing's suburbs for fear of having come into contract with two A(H1N1) virus carriers.