China to lift COVID-19 quarantine for international travellers from Jan 8

In a major shift from its ‘zero-COVID’ policy, the Chinese government has decided to lift the mandatory quarantine rules for international travellers from January 8, 2023, as the country reopens its borders and comes out of international isolation after nearly three years.

Foreign travellers, however, will have to furnish a negative COVID-19 test report within 48 hours of departure, the National Health Commission (NHC) announced on Monday.

The NHC said that COVID-19 management will be downgraded from Class A to B from next month, in the same category as less-severe diseases, such as Dengue fever.

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China’s COVID-19 rules earlier made it mandatory for international passengers to mandatorily stay in over two weeks of quarantine in government accommodations, which was gradually reduced to five days with three days of observation.

The re-opening of borders and lifting of curbs on international travel, however, come at a time when the Asian country is grappling with a severe COVID-19 outbreak driven by the Omicron variant, prompting the world to prepare for a possible fresh surge in cases.

Infections spiked in China after the Xi Jinping regime relaxed its stringent zero-COVID policy earlier this month following a wave of anti-government protests.

Also read: COVID: Is China hiding the numbers?

Officials argue that the Omicron variant was not as lethal as the Delta strain, which caused massive casualties all over the world. COVID-19 has been managed as a top category A infectious disease since 2020, putting it at par with bubonic plague and cholera, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

Under Chinese laws, authorities must impose the toughest restrictions such as quarantine and isolation of the infected and their close contacts, and lockdowns to contain those diseases. At the border, the infected must be isolated and those who might be infected quarantined, depending on the incubation period. The NHC also stopped announcing daily COVID cases from Sunday. The novel coronavirus first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019 before it turned into a pandemic.

Also read: Amid COVID surge, China’s health body stops publishing daily numbers

(With inputs from agencies)