China will drop Covid-19 quarantine requirements for passengers arriving from abroad from 8 January, its National Health Commission has announced in the latest easing of the country’s once-strict virus-control measures.
Currently, arriving passengers must quarantine for five days at a hotel, followed by three days at home. At one stage there was a requirement to quarantine for three weeks.
The scrapping of the measure is a major step toward fully reopening travel with the rest of the world, which the government severely curtailed in a bid to keep the virus out.
Stories of desperation are emerging in Shanghai as the city enters its third day of strict lockdown, with increasingly widespread reports of residents being unable to access food, medicine and other essentials.
The city’s Covid lockdown was extended indefinitely earlier this week after staggered restrictions failed to contain infections. City officials had promised the staggered lockdown would end on 5 April, leaving many residents of the Chinese megacity unprepared to be indefinitely housebound.
