China dropped mandatory COVID-19 testing for incoming travelers on Wednesday, becoming one of the last countries in the world to do so.
25.08.2023 - 14:39 / skift.com / Xi Jinping
Beijing shut parks, malls and museums on Tuesday while more Chinese cities resumed mass testing for Covid-19 as authorities struggle with a spike in cases that has deepened concern about the economy and dimmed hopes for a quick reopening.
China reported 28,127 new domestically transmitted cases for Monday, nearing its daily peak from April, with infections in the southern city of Guangzhou and the southwestern municipality of Chongqing accounting for about half the total.
In Beijing, cases have been hitting new highs every day, prompting calls from the city government for more residents to stay put and show proof of a negative Covid test, not more than 48 hours old, to get into public buildings.
The wave of infections is testing recent adjustments China has made to its zero-Covid policy, aimed at making authorities more targeted in clampdown measures and steering them away from blanket lockdowns and testing that have strangled the economy and frustrated residents nearly three years into the pandemic.
“Some of our friends went bankrupt, and some lost their jobs,” said a 50-year-old Beijing retiree surnamed Zhu.
“We can’t do many activities we intended to do, and it is impossible to travel. So we really hope that the pandemic can end as soon as possible,” she said.
Health authorities attributed two more deaths to Covid-19, after three over the weekend, which were China’s first since May.
Shanghai on Tuesday ordered the closure of cultural and entertainment venues in seven of its 16 districts after reporting 48 new local infections, while the city of Tianjin, near Beijing, became the latest to order city-wide testing.
Even after the adjusted guidelines, China remains a global outlier with its strict Covid restrictions, including borders that remain all-but-shut.
Tightening measures in Beijing and elsewhere, even as China tries to avoid city-wide lockdowns like the one that crippled Shanghai this year, have renewed investor worries about the world’s second-largest economy, weighing on stocks and prompting analysts to cut forecasts for China’s year-end oil demand.
Brokerage Nomura said its in-house index estimated that localities accounting for about 19.9 percent of China’s total gross domestic product were under some form of lockdown or curbs, up from 15.6 percent last Monday and not far off the index’s peak in April, during Shanghai’s lockdown.
The government argues that President Xi Jinping’s signature zero-Covid policy saves lives and is necessary to prevent the healthcare system becoming overwhelmed.
But many frustrated social media users drew a comparison with maskless fans at the soccer World Cup, which began on Sunday in Qatar.
“Tens of thousands in Qatar don’t wear masks. And we are still
China dropped mandatory COVID-19 testing for incoming travelers on Wednesday, becoming one of the last countries in the world to do so.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo arrived in Beijing late on Sunday for a four-day visit aimed at boosting business ties between the world’s two largest economies while declaring American national security trade measures off-limits for debate.
The U.S. travel industry is cheering on the Biden Administration’s new push to get more federal employees back into the office.
Searches on Chinese travel sites surged and social media platforms were flooded with delight and relief on Wednesday as the public cheered the biggest loosening of some of the world’s strictest Covid policies.
The number of foreign visitors to Japan rose to nearly 500,000 in October, the first month it fully reopened to overseas visitors after more than two years of COVID restrictions, more than doubling the volume from September.
Beijing Capital International Airport will no longer require proof of a negative Covid result for entry into its terminals, Reuters has reported, quoting Beijing News, a newspaper owned by the Chinese Communist Party.
More than half of Chinese say they will put off travel abroad, for periods from several months to more than a year, even if borders reopened tomorrow, a study showed on Tuesday, a sign that consumer recovery from Covid-19 measures will take time.
Chinese people, cut off from the rest of the world for three years by stringent COVID-19 curbs, flocked to travel sites on Tuesday ahead of borders reopening next month, even as rising infections strained the health system and roiled the economy.
Travel website KAYAK, owned by Booking Holdings Inc, said domestic searches for hotels within China surged last week, after the country loosened its COVID-19-related restrictions.
The recent relaxation of zero-Covid policies in China offered great hope to a corporate travel industry stymied by those rules and one waiting to bring China back into the fold to speed up its recovery. But the ensuing testing requirements being put in place now by countries will be a major setback and dent much-needed confidence, industry associations warn.
China on Saturday marked the first day of “chun yun”, the 40-day period of Lunar New Year travel known pre-pandemic as the world’s largest annual migration of people, bracing for a huge increase in travellers and the spread of COVID-19 infections.
The United States will impose mandatory COVID-19 tests on travelers from China, U.S. health officials said on Wednesday, joining India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan in taking new measures after Beijing’s decision to lift stringent zero-COVID policies.