China Ends COVID Quarantine for Foreign Travelers

Facts

• On Monday, Chinese authorities announced that, beginning Jan. 8, 2023, travelers will no longer need to quarantine upon arrival on the mainland, though a negative nucleic acid test from the last 48 hours will still be required.¹
• China's National Health Commission added that COVID management will be formally downgraded to a Class B infectious disease from the current top-level Category A.¹
• In addition, the Commission said the PRC would take steps to improve visa arrangements for foreigners – excluding tourists – entering the country to resume work, business, study, and family gatherings.²
• The country's zero-Covid policy presently mandates inbound travelers to quarantine for five days at a government-supervised facility and three days of isolation at home.³
• The move follows rare public protests – the largest since the Tiananmen Square demonstrations of 1989– against the PRC's strict lockdowns earlier this month.⁴
• It also comes as the country grapples with the virus' unprecedented spread in the wake of the government's sudden dismantling of its strict policies. Though officials have stopped releasing daily case counts and deaths, a Bloomberg report claims as many as 248M people contracted the virus in the first 20 days of December 2022.⁵

Sources: ¹China Briefing News, ²BBC News, ³CNBC, ⁴Guardian and ⁵Al Jazeera.

Narratives

• Pro-China narrative, as provided by Global Times. The world has much to learn from China’s COVID response, which allowed the mainland to halt its spread while the infection caused over 15M deaths worldwide. The PRC is doing its best to balance economic realities, public health, and societal pressures. Beijing's current strategic easing will safeguard both health and the economy.
• Anti-China narrative, as provided by Daily Mail. Beijing's zero-COVID U-turn could prove lethal. The PRC's hermit strategy has left the population with little exposure or natural immunity, and the virus will undoubtedly run rampant as almost all restrictions are now lifted. Given China's low vaccination rate for the elderly, the government has inadvertently initiated a pandemic tsunami by downgrading the threat and allowing the virus to rip through the population.