The abrupt end of China’s “zero-COVID” policy this month has raised concerns in several countries, including the United States, which are considering entry restrictions for Chinese travelers.
Beijing’s announcement on Monday that mandatory quarantines on arrival would end on January 8 was greeted with glee by Chinese people.
This decision marks the impending disappearance of the last vestige of China’s “zero-COVID” policy, which has isolated the country for nearly three years and sparked demonstrations on an unprecedented scale in late November. It sparked a rush for international flights and ticket prices skyrocketed.
The news was taken very differently abroad as China faces the world’s largest wave of contamination, compounded by the emergence of new variants.
In the United States, officials said on Tuesday entry restrictions for travelers from China were being considered after Japan and India imposed mandatory PCR tests on Chinese arrivals.
“The international community is increasingly concerned about the current outbreaks of COVID-19 in China and the lack of transparent data, including viral genome sequence data, reported by the PRC,” the US officials said on condition of anonymity in relation to the People’s Republic of China.
Citing concerns raised by the World Health Organization (WHO), they added that the United States is “considering taking similar measures” decided by Japan, India and Malaysia.
compulsory exams
Japan is thus reinstating mandatory PCR tests for travelers from mainland China from Friday.
The island of Taiwan, which China claims as part of its sovereign territory, also announced it would carry out virus checks on mainland travelers.
Beijing’s sudden reversal in health policy has ended nearly three years of mass testing, lockdowns and extended quarantines that have severely disrupted the country’s supply chains and China’s economy, the world’s second-biggest.
Hospitals and crematoria are overwhelmed as local residents report shortages of fever medication as the spread of the virus remains largely uncontrolled among the 1.4 billion population.
Asked about the restrictions announced by Japan, China’s foreign ministry on Tuesday urged states to maintain “scientific and reasonable” anti-Covid measures that “do not disrupt” human exchanges.
All travelers arriving in China have had to comply with mandatory quarantine since March 2020. Initially three weeks, it was shortened to just one in June and then to five days last month.
The abolition of this rule in January also means the reclassification of COVID-19 as a category B infectious disease, allowing authorities to relax controls.
On Tuesday, Chinese migration authorities also announced the gradual resumption of passport issuance for “tourism” and “visiting friends abroad” from Jan. 8.
This resumption of the winter epidemic comes a few weeks before the Lunar New Year in late January, during which millions of people will travel to find loved ones.
“Impossible” to measure
Chinese authorities have conceded that the scale of the epidemic is now “impossible” to measure and reduced the number of criteria used to attribute a death to Covid.
The China Center for Disease Prevention and Control on Wednesday listed 5,231 new infections and three deaths from the coronavirus nationwide, numbers likely underestimated because those who are sick are no longer required to report.
Authorities are using data from online surveys, hospital visits, fever medication requests and emergency calls to “fill in the gaps in the reported (official) numbers,” disease control official Yin Wenwu said at a press conference.
Facing shortages of basic medicines, Beijing authorities plan to distribute Paxlovid, an oral drug, to local hospitals and community clinics.
However, it is still very difficult for the ordinary citizen to obtain.
Developed by the United States, this drug was briefly available on e-commerce platform JD.com and delivery platform Meituan for the past few days before going out of stock.