China Covid update: Chinese govt scraps quarantine rule for international arrivals, to distribute Pfizer drug in Beijing

The Chinese government has decided to drop quarantine requirements for international travellers from January 8 despite seeing a massive surge in cases since the last two weeks. This is a major step towards relaxation of its Zero Covid policy, which was ended abruptly earlier this month after nationwide protests, and reopening its international borders that have been shut for nearly three years.

In an announcement, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) informed that inbound travellers can show a negative Covid test result conducted within 48 hours before departure and that would be all to enter the country. Those infected, would have to hotel quarantine for five days or can opt for three days of self-isolation at home.

Restrictions on airlines over the number of international flights and passenger capacity will also be removed, the announcement stated.

Besides, China's management of Covid-19 will also be downgraded to the less strict Category B from the current top-level Category A, the health authority said, as the disease has become less virulent and will gradually evolve into a common respiratory infection.

Since March 2020, China has restricted sealing its borders to prevent the spread of the virus and has kept its people globally isolated even as many countries removed the restrictions and adopted newer models to overcome the pandemic.

But, of late, as per social media posts, China has been struggling with the raging Covid-19 cases after it abruptly ended the Zero Covid policy earlier this month. The hospitals and crematoriums are overflowing with patients with elderly people are dying. The true case and death counts are currently unknown because Chinese health officials have stopped releasing Covid data. Officially, Beijing has said that it reported about 4,000 new Covid infections each day last week and few deaths. But the ground reality is totally opposite.

But as per news reports, an internal estimate from the National Health Commission has said that almost 250 million people in China have caught Covid in the first 20 days of December, which is almost 18 per cent of the country’s population.

Cities like Qingdao, Dongguan, Shaanxi Province, and Yulin have logged in 250,000 and 300,000 new cases daily last week, according to local media. But many reports claimed that the cases are much more than that.

 Pfizer vaccine to rescue 

As per reports, experts have said there are many existing Omicron variants in China, including BF.7, which is believed to be driving the current surge, and are immune to the vaccines. On Monday, Beijing said it will soon start distributing Pfizer's Covid-19 drug Paxlovid to the community health centres to bring the cases under control, according to a CNN report. China has been facing a shortage of basic medicines after an unprecedented wave of infections was reported that has severely strained the hospitals and pharmacies.

According to the state-run China News Service, after getting training, community doctors would dispense the medicine to Covid-19 patients and provide information on how to use it.

On Monday, President Xi Jinping, issuing his first public statement on the current Covid status in the country, said that the country needed a more targeted health strategy to protect people’s lives as the Covid situation in China changes.