After adhering to a tight zero Covid policy throughout the epidemic, China on Tuesday significantly loosened entrance restrictions by reducing the time of the necessary quarantine for visitors.
The revised guidelines reduce the required quarantine period for international travelers from around 21 days to seven days, with an additional three days of home monitoring.
In an effort to contain “imported” virus infections as the epidemic rages abroad, China locked shut its international borders at the start of the pandemic, and the number of foreign flights is still severely constrained.
Since then, foreign guests have had to endure pricey quarantine in hotels and specialized centers for weeks at a time.
Inbound travelers entering China will no longer be obliged to quarantine centrally for more than seven days, according to the most recent Covid prevention and control policy guidelines released by the National Health Commission and the State Council.
With Beijing cutting quarantine last month, a rising number of “pilot” towns have already reduced the required centralized quarantine period for visitors from other countries to 10 days as of April.
However, Beijing maintains a “circuit breaker” mechanism wherein routes are momentarily canceled if sufficient numbers of positive passengers are found on board, which commonly results in the cancellation of few foreign flights.
The most recent recommendations state that the rigorous quarantine enforced on communities with positive cases in China also applies to those who have been recognized as close connections there.
