Beijing’s announcement on Monday that mandatory quarantines on arrival would end on January 8 was greeted with glee by Chinese people. The decision marks the imminent 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.
However, the abrupt end of this “zero Covid” policy this month was met with a very different reception 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.
Tests, controls and lack of transparency
“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 anonymously, referring 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.
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.
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. This is a few weeks before the Lunar New Year at the end of January, when millions of people will travel to find their loved ones.
“Impossible” to measure
Chinese authorities have recognized that the scale of the epidemic wave is now “impossible” to measure and have reduced the number of criteria for attributing a death to Covid. The Chinese Center for Disease Prevention and Control listed 5,231 new infections and three deaths from the coronavirus nationwide on Wednesday, numbers that were probably underestimated because the sick no longer have to report.
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 JD’s e-commerce platform. com and the Meituan Delivery One in the last few days before it sold out.