China will stop asking for data on Covid-19 from international travelers

A notice from the General Administration of Customs specified that international travelers should only fill out a health declaration on the WeChat social network or on a web page, without this information.

The form includes consent from the individual to collect samples during quarantine.

However, he clarified that the decision does not mean lifting the country’s zero Covid-19 strategy and passengers still have to submit two PCR tests with negative results and perform them 48 hours before boarding a plane bound for the Asian giant.

This is the latest move by China in favor of international passenger traffic, even though the borders remain closed.

On Wednesday, it began allowing foreign students from fifty countries around the world with valid residency permits to return to its universities, after two years of interruptions due to restrictions adopted to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.

It will also welcome entrepreneurs with their families and citizens of other countries who have recently been approved into their homes for higher education, but to pursue multi-year jobs.

Since June, China and its embassies in some countries have abolished the requirement to submit an official letter of invitation for foreigners who need to come here for work, family reunification, and obtain residence permits.

It has reduced central and home quarantine for incoming travelers, although it requires vaccination with products approved by the World Health Organization, namely Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, Oxford/AstraZeneca, Sinopharm and CoronaVac. The last two are local.

Overall, the eastern country has accumulated at least 24,603 deaths and five million 762,559 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in its mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan since the outbreak of the disease and the coronavirus that causes it in December of 2019.

Since last March, it has seen frequent outbreaks of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the most recent of which have broken out in Hainan, Tibet and Xinjiang, all tourist destinations in high demand in summer.

jha / ymr