Travelers who arrived at Pudong airport in Shanghai wait to board a bus to be quarantined in a hotel on August 13, 2021 in China (AFP/Archives/GREG BAKER)
The quarantine for travelers arriving in China from overseas is being reduced from around 21 days to seven days at the hotel plus three days of home observation, the National Health Commission said on Tuesday.
These new rules constitute a major change in the entry restrictions imposed by China, which has followed a strict so-called “zero Covid” strategy since the start of the pandemic.
Beijing had closed its international borders at the time of the spread of the coronavirus and the number of flights arriving in China remains very limited in order to reduce imported cases.
For the past two years, travelers arriving from abroad have had to undergo an expensive quarantine in a hotel or a dedicated center.
According to the new Covid control and prevention policy, this so-called “centralized” quarantine is reduced to seven days.
Since April, a growing number of pilot cities, including Beijing in May, have already reduced the centralized quarantine for arrivals from abroad to ten days.
The rare international flights are however frequently canceled, because Beijing applies a “circuit breaker” system which suspends connections when a certain number of positive passengers are detected.
These new rules also apply to people designated as contact cases inside China, where strict quarantine is also applied to neighborhoods with positive cases.
© 2022 AFP
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