Sébastien Le Belzic (in Beijing)
China authorizes, as of this Sunday, its nationals to travel abroad and to return to their country. Beijing thus ends the country’s three-year isolation as the country faces a surge in Covid-19 cases. The Chinese express their relief at this relaxation.
China on Sunday lifted a mandatory quarantine for travelers from overseas, ending the country’s three-year lockdown as it grapples with a spike in Covid-19 cases. After three years of some of the most draconian restrictions in the world, which hit its economy hard and eventually sparked protests across the country, China last month abruptly lifted most of its pandemic measures.
A relief
The first arrivals expressed their relief at not having to endure the grueling quarantines that have become the daily life of the Chinese due to the “zero Covid” strategy decided by the authorities and at finally being able to see their families again. “I often went back to China before the coronavirus. And there, it had been closed for so long. I missed a lot of things like Chinese food and my friends”, explains a Chinese student at the microphone of Europe 1.
The only constraint for the Chinese: a mandatory PCR test on departure and arrival in China and air links which are still very limited and therefore very expensive. The six weekly flights between France and China will increase to eight flights in February. The average of a hundred flights operated per week before the pandemic still seems far away.
