On Monday, China’s government said in a statement that they will be opening up their borders to the world. They will be lifting the mandatory quarantines for travelers from the 8th of January 2022. Travelers to China will only be required to show a Covid test result that was taken 48 hours before departure.
This statement comes from the government amidst the rising number of covid cases in China. A few weeks ago experts predicted that in the next three months, 60% of the Chinese population will be infected by covid.
This also comes as a relief for China which has been under self-imposed global isolation for nearly three years which affected the economy of China terribly and made the citizens of China very furious.
Chinese Government’s statement
China has said it will give visas to foreigners who need to travel to China to study and for business purposes. The current limit on the number of flights to and from China will also be lifted, said the Chinese Government in its statement.
China has been changing its covid policies rapidly ever since the protest against the zero covid policy took place in late November. The speed at which all of these measures are being lifted has left experts puzzled and residents scrambling to adjust to the new way of life.
Easier access to China will benefit many countries which specifically rely on tourists.
And the recent loosening of testing and isolation requirements for travel within China may also boost domestic tourism revenue, which declined 26% over the week-long National Day holiday in October, compared with the same period last year.
Management of Covid in China
The country has reduced the management of covid since the end of September. Still, the National Health Commission said it will continue to monitor the virus’s spread and vowed to take appropriate measures to suppress the peak of Covid outbreaks.
The Health Commission also said China will enhance the treatment of severe patients by boosting the supply of life-saving medical devices, such as ventilators, and the capacity of intensive care units. It will also repurpose quarantine facilities into hospitals for treating Covid patients. The country has already ramped up the share of ICU beds from less than 4 per 10,000 people to 10.6 in about a month time while another 70,000 beds across the country can be converted for intensive care, Jiao Yahui, a senior NHC official overseeing hospitals said in a separate People’s Daily interview published on Tuesday.
“Our priority now needs to change from preventing and controlling infection to treatment, to ensure health and prevent severe disease and enabling a stable orderly transition as we adjust our Covid response,” Liang Wannian, a senior health official said in an interview with People’s Daily on Tuesday.
The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has also said that they will be reducing the frequency of reporting cases. They will begin reporting monthly reports instead of daily reports. To further downgrade the impact of covid-19, the government has decided to change the Chinese name of Covid-19 to “New Coronavirus” instead of “new coronavirus pneumonia”
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Omicron’s much-reduced virulence compared to the ancestral strain that emerged from Wuhan means most people are sickened with only mild upper respiratory tract infections, authorities said.
“The new coronavirus will linger in nature for a long time to come,” according to the statement. “It has become much less virulent than before and the disease it causes will gradually turn into a common respiratory disease.”
