China is slowly beginning to live with Covid as it continues to ease more restrictions. On Monday, the National Health Commission announced that passengers arriving from abroad will no longer be required to undergo quarantine. The new rule will come into effect from January 8. Currently, arriving passengers must quarantine for five days at a hotel, followed by three days at home.
Since it abandoned the mandated mass testing regulations, China has stopped publishing the daily Covid count, although those figures are now unreliable. As of right now, no Covid tests will be performed on visitors from outside. Antigen testing at airports will only be performed on travellers who have a fever or other flu-like symptoms.
NO TESTING, NO QUARANTINE FOR ARRIVALS
China’s health authority claimed that restrictions had been loosened to make it simpler for some foreigners to enter the country, but tourists were not included. It did imply that Chinese nationals might eventually be permitted to go overseas once more for tourism, which is a significant source of income for hotels and other associated companies in many nations.
The testing and quarantine requirement had made it difficult for ordinary Chinese individuals to go overseas, it had curbed in-person diplomatic interactions, and it had significantly decreased the number of foreigners who were in China for employment and study. However, inbound travellers will still need a negative virus test 48 hours before to departure, and everyone on board aircraft will be forced to wear protective masks.
PFIZER’S COVID DRUG IN BEIJING
Another significant step is that China has chosen to begin distributing the Pfizer medicine Paxlovid to community health clinics in Beijing in the coming days, according to official media on Monday. A severe increase in infections has left big cities like Beijing and Shanghai in crisis, leading to a medicine scarcity in pharmacies. The only foreign medication for the treatment of Covid that has been authorised for widespread use in China by the regulation is still paxlovid, albeit availability is restricted.
Vaccination of senior citizens
China wants to significantly raise the immunisation rate among the elderly and encourage second doses among those at high risk of serious disease. However, a lot of older people are still sceptical because they are concerned about reports of fevers, blood clots, and other adverse effects, according to the AP. Only six Covid fatalities have been reported by the health commission this month, putting the nation’s official death toll to 5,241. That is true despite numerous reports from families of relatives passing away.
According to a health official last week, China’s official Covid toll only includes fatalities from pneumonia or respiratory failure. This remarkably strict definition precludes a large number of deaths that other nations would attribute to Covid. Authorities are going door-to-door and offering older people money to receive the Covid vaccination in the significant industrial province of Zhejiang. Zhejiang reports over a million instances every day, and it is anticipated that this number will treble.
Through the end of 2023, two million fatalities are expected in China, according to experts. China’s zero-Covid approach became more unworkable once the fast-moving Omicron version, BF.7, appeared in late 2021, necessitating ever-wider lockdowns that halted development and ruined lives. After people protested the stringent limitations in the streets, the initiative was abandoned. But the change in the policy has flooded hospitals with feverish, wheezing patients.
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