China has announced that its quarantine requirement for travelers arriving in the country will end on January 8th. The measure is the latest in a series of restrictions that will be lifted when the Asian country abandons its zero-covid policy. China is seeing an explosion in Covid-related infections and health workers are struggling to cope.
The country’s President Xi Jinping urged officials to do what “we can” to save lives, during his first remarks on the changes. State media quoted him as saying the country is facing new situations that demand a more targeted response.
China has stopped publishing covid statistics, but it is believed that thousands of people may be dying every day. Since March 2020, all passengers arriving in China have had to undergo mandatory centralized quarantine. But the length of time has been progressively reduced, from three weeks originally to just five days today.
New rules
Under the new rules, Covid-19 will be downgraded from a class A to a class B infectious disease, meaning quarantine will no longer apply. China’s drastic change in the way it handles the pandemic has left Xi in an awkward position, analysts say. He was the promoter of the zero Covid policy, which was blamed for excessively restricting people’s lives and hurting the economy.
But by abandoning it, he has to deal with the enormous wave of infections and hospital admissions, mainly among the elderly. Public anger over the President’s handling of the pandemic is one of the areas in which the President is most vulnerable.
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