Beijing's announcement on Monday that the January 8 end of mandatory quarantines on arrival was greeted with joy by the Chinese.

This decision marks the imminent disappearance of the last vestige of the Chinese “zero Covid” policy which has isolated the country for almost three years and sparked demonstrations at the end of November on an unprecedented scale for decades.

It sparked a rush for international flights and ticket prices skyrocketed.

The abrupt end this month of this “zero Covid” policy was received in a completely different way abroad, however, as China faces the largest wave of contaminations in the world, amplified by the emergence of new variants.

In the United States, officials said Tuesday that entry restrictions for travelers from China were being considered, after Japan and India imposed mandatory PCR tests on Chinese arrivals. 

Tests, controls and lack of transparency

"The international community is increasingly concerned about the current outbreaks of Covid-19 in China and the lack of transparent data, including viral genomic sequence data, reported by the PRC," the US officials said, under anonymous, in reference to the People's Republic of China.

Citing concerns expressed by the World Health Organization (WHO), they added that the United States "is considering taking similar measures" to those decided by Japan, India and Malaysia.

Japan will thus restore from Friday the mandatory PCR tests for travelers from mainland China.

The island of Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory, also announced that it would carry out virus checks on travelers from the mainland.



Asked about the restrictions announced by Japan, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday called on states to maintain “scientific and appropriate” measures against Covid and which “do not disrupt” human exchanges.

This a few weeks before the Lunar New Year at the end of January, during which millions of people will travel to find their loved ones.

“Impossible” to measure

Chinese authorities have recognized that the extent of the epidemic wave is now "impossible" to measure and have reduced the number of criteria for attributing a death to Covid.

The Chinese Center for Disease Prevention and Control thus listed 5,231 new contaminations and three deaths from the coronavirus on a national scale on Wednesday, figures probably underestimated because the sick no longer need to declare themselves.

Faced with shortages of basic drugs, the Beijing authorities plan to distribute Paxlovid, an oral treatment, in local hospitals and community clinics.

However, it remains very difficult to obtain for the ordinary citizen.

This drug, developed by the United States, was briefly available on the JD e-commerce platform.

com and the Meituan delivery one in the last few days, before it ran out of stock.

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Covid-19 in China: No more mandatory quarantine on arrival from January 8

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