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China won’t require COVID-19 tests for incoming travellers

AP – China will no longer require a negative COVID-19 test result for incoming travellers starting tomorrow, a milestone in its reopening to the rest of the world after a three-year isolation that began with the country’s borders closing in March 2020.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin announced the change at a briefing in Beijing yesterday.

China in January ended quarantine requirements for its own citizens travelling from abroad, and has gradually expanded the list of countries that Chinese people can travel to and increased the number of international flights.

Beijing ended its tough domestic “zero COVID-19” policy only in December, after years of curbs that at times included full-city lockdowns and lengthy quarantines for infected people.

The restrictions slowed the world’s second-largest economy, leading to rising unemployment and occasional instances of unrest.

A traveller walks through the international flight arrivals area at Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, China. PHOTO: AP

As part of those measures, incoming travellers were required to isolate for weeks at government-designated hotels. Residents were in some cases forcibly locked into their homes in attempts to stop the virus from spreading.

Protests in major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Nanjing erupted in November over the COVID-19 curbs.

In early December, authorities abruptly scrapped most COVID-19 controls, ushering in a wave of infections that overwhelmed hospitals and morgues.

A United States federally funded study this month found the rapid dismantling of the “zero COVID-19” policy may have led to nearly two million excess deaths in the following two months. That number greatly exceeds official estimates of 60,000 deaths within a month of the lifting of the curbs.

During the years of “zero COVID-19”, local authorities occasionally imposed snap lockdowns in attempts to isolate infections, trapping people inside offices and apartment buildings.

From April until June last year, the city of Shanghai locked down its 25 million residents in one of the world’s largest pandemic-related mass lockdowns. Residents were required to take frequent PCR tests and had to rely on government food supplies, often described as insufficient.

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