China drops Covid tests for incoming travellers – more than three years after virus first swept the globe
- Beijing is trying to open up to the world after abandoning its zero-Covid policies
- READ MORE: Probe launched into why NHS staff still aren’t getting Covid jabs
Beijing is finally dropping a requirement for incoming travellers to have a negative Covid test from tomorrow.
The move is part of China’s effort to reopen to the world after it imposed border restrictions in March 2020 when the spread of the virus started to cause alarm.
It follows Chinese officials ending quarantine requirements for its citizens returning home from abroad in January this year.
President Xi Jinping’s Government has gradually been expanding the list of expanding the list of countries Chinese nationals are permitted to travel to as well as increasing the number of flights to and from the country over the past few months.
China abandoned its draconian zero-Covid policy only in December, a set of measures that included dramatic full-city lockdowns and lengthy quarantines for people who tested positive for Covid.
A traveler walks through the international flight arrivals area at Beijing Capital International Airport, in April this year China will no longer require a negative Covid test result from incoming travelers starting from Wednesday
READ MORE: Probe into why NHS staff still aren’t getting Covid jabs – as data shows only one in 10 got latest booster in parts of the country
One such city-wide lockdown saw 25million people in the city of Shanghai locked down from April to June last year.
The lockdown led to suicides as trapped residents starved in their apartments.
China’s polices also saw nightmarish scenes where residents were forcibly locked inside buildings to stop the virus from spreading.
These lockdowns could be imposed with no warning, trapping people in their homes, and even office buildings, for extended periods.
The Government’s heavy-handed Covid policy led to rare protests in major Chinese city’s like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Nanjing, the most direct challenge to the Communist party since the bloody Tiananmen protests of 1989.
But the abolition of these polices led to a dramatic surge in Covid infections which overwhelmed China’s hospitals and morgues.
A US Government funded analysis suggested the rapid withdrawal of the measures may have contributed to 2million excess deaths in the country in the following two months.
China officially estimates only 60,000 such deaths occurred.
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