From January 8, there will no longer be a quarantine requirement to enter China. As the National Health Commission announced on Monday evening, passengers are only required to submit a negative corona test no older than 48 hours. Recently, travelers were isolated and closely watched in a hotel room for at least five days. Sometimes even a 21-day entry quarantine was mandatory.
The announcement will likely be greeted with great enthusiasm by the public, as home visits are unlikely for Chinese living abroad during the pandemic. Gradually, the Chinese should also be allowed to make more international travel again. During the pandemic, the government severely restricted the travel of its citizens abroad.
China is the only major economy in the world that continues to require entry quarantine. Although the quarantine period has already shortened in recent months, this has especially hit tourism. After a long three-week mandatory quarantine, it was reduced to ten days in June. Currently, a five-day quarantine is mandatory in a hotel.
18 percent of the population is infected
Beijing stepped away from its strict zero Covid policy in early December after almost three years of lockdown, mass testing and other strict measures. Since then, the corona virus has been spreading rapidly in China, and the country is experiencing the highest increase in infections in the world. According to the estimates in the researches, approximately one million people may die in the coming months. The government justified the mitigation, saying the omycron variant claims fewer deaths.
According to internally unconfirmed estimates, 248 million people, or 18 percent of the population, were infected with Corona in the first three weeks of December alone. Hospitals are overcrowded and many crematoriums can no longer cremate bodies fast enough. According to experts’ estimates, hundreds of thousands of deaths are expected.
On Sunday, China stopped publishing daily corona data. The national health commission has announced that new infection and death numbers will no longer be announced on a daily basis. He did not give a reason for this. (AFP/SDA)