China confronts the Covid-19 crisis: a woman in a hazmat-suited worker’s video lashes out against media criticality
China is bracing for an unprecedented wave of Covid-19 cases as it dismantles large parts of its repressive zero-Covid policy, with a leading expert warning Omicron variants were “spreading rapidly” and signs of an outbreak rattling the country’s capital.
Fighting back tears, she shouts abuse at the hazmat-suited workers below in a video that has recently gone viral on social media platform Weibo and which appears to encapsulate the Chinese public’s growing frustration with their government’s uncompromising zero-Covid policy.
The woman has been under quarantine for half a year since returning from university in the summer, she shouts at the workers. They stare back, seemingly unmoved.
While most Asian economies – even those with previously hardline zero-Covid stances – are abandoning pandemic-era restrictions, authorities in China remain zealous in theirs, repeatedly insisting this week in state-run media articles that the battle against the virus remains “winnable.”
There is a new strain of illness that comes just days before the Communist Party Congress beginning in Beijing, which is expected to make him the country’s most powerful leader in decades.
Observers across the world will be watching the twice-a-decade meeting for signs of the party’s priorities when it comes to its zero-Covid stance, which has been blamed for exacerbating mounting problems in the economy, from stalled growth to a collapsing housing market.
What the Chinese people have to say about a rare public protest against the Communist Party: No to Covid test, yes to food, no to lockdown and no to democracy
In China’s capital there is a lot of excitement, with online photos showing a rare public protest against the president. “Say no to Covid test, yes to food. No to lockdown, yes to freedom. No to lies, yes to dignity. No to cultural revolution, yes to reform. Yes to vote, but no to a great leader. The banner that hung over the overpass said “don’t be a slave, be a citizen” despite the heightened security surrounding the Congress.
Weibo, a Twitter-like platform, immediately censored search results for “Sitong Bridge,” the site of the protest. Key words such as Beijing, Haidian, warrior, andbrave man were not allowed to be searched.
Numerous accounts on Weibo and WeChat, the super-app essential for daily life in China, have been banned after commenting on – or alluding to – the protest.
Many people spoke out about their support and awe. Some shared the Chinese pop hit “Lonely Warrior” in a veiled reference to the protester, who some called a “hero,” while others swore never to forget, posting under the hashtag: “I saw it.”
Even in the face of increasing public unhappiness, all the signs point to the continuation of the zero- Covid approach even after Congress, with the state media reporting this week that the country may change tack post- Congress.
In the city where 25 million people have already experienced two months of the world’s strictest lock down, residents are on alert for any signs of a repeat.
China only counts deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official COVID-19 toll, a health official said last week. Many deaths would be attributed to COVID-19.
Beijing has given up on the Chinese epidemic of BF.7 in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, despite the latest snap lockdowns
Spooked by the possibility of unpredictable and unannounced snap lockdowns – and mindful that authorities have previously backtracked after suggesting that no such measures were coming – some people in the city have reportedly been hoarding drinking water.
The announcement that the water authorities in Shanghai have taken action to ensure water quality after discovering saltwater in two basins at the mouth of the Yangtze River made panic buying worse.
Exactly what is driving the increase in infections is not clear, though authorities are scrambling to contain the spread of the BF.7 coronavirus strain after it was first detected in China in late September in Hohhot, the capital city of Inner Mongolia.
The country has seen cases of domestic tourists in destinations that were not previously visited, despite the strict curbs on travel that were put in place during China’s Golden Week holiday.
A deputy director of the department of education said that there are more than 240,000 University students locked down because of the latest outbreak. And the outbreak on campus has led to punitive action, with one university Communist Party boss being sacked after 39 students from his institution tested positive.
There are 22 million people that have been banned from leaving the western part of Uyghur, where they are not allowed to leave. On Thursday, the official tally shows that there were over 400 new cases in the region.
Yet amid it all, Beijing appears unwilling to move from its hardline stance. The commentary were published for three days this week in the People’s Daily.
The battle against Covid was winnable, it insisted. Other countries that had reopened and eased restrictions had done so because they had no choice, it said, as they had failed to “effectively control the epidemic in a timely manner.”
The biggest step toward ending limits on foreign visitors in China is expected to take place on January 8, when a Quarantine for travelers from abroad will end. There were reduced the number of days a person can be in confinement last month.
The new measures were announced Friday after a meeting by the ruling Communist Party’s top decision-making body, which promised to maintain Covid protocols while emphasizing the need to minimize economic and social disruptions.
Implications of easing strict zero-COVID policies for the economic and social costs of the epidemic: China’s public response to Covid-19
The economic and social costs that the zero- tolerance approach has brought have drawn a lot of public backlash.
The easing of the measures will see authorities scrap the so-called “circuit breaker” mechanism, under which China-bound flights were suspended if an airline was found to carry a certain number of passengers who tested positive for Covid upon landing.
Arrival passengers must be at a hotel for 5 days before returning to their home. That is down from as much as three weeks in the past.
Markets responded well to the changes as international investors are jittery. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index shot up 7% just after the noon break local time, while mainland China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rose 2.5%.
Under the new guidelines, people who are identified as close contacts of Covid-19 cases will be able to shorten their stay in centralized government-operated facilities from seven days to five and three days, respectively.
The Chinese government issued new guidelines easing some of its strict zero-COVID policies on Wednesday. For the first time, people with no symptoms or mild symptoms who have been exposed to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-CoV-2 can travel to their home instead of being kept in centrally managed facilities. But researchers worry the changes will lead to a rise in infections that risk overwhelming hospitals.
The government reported 10,535 new domestic transmitted cases on Thursday, the highest in months, and the authorities were bracing for a worse situation.
The National Health Commission warned that the epidemic “is likely to further expand in scope and scale” due to mutations and weather factors in the winter and spring.
“It’s a shock to me to see what’s happening in China,” said a Beijing tech executive after the pandemic update
The health code signs at metro station walls and the physical signs of the zero- Covid controls in China have been taken down since the government revised its pandemic policy.
But as many residents expressed relief and happiness at the obvious loosening of measures, some worried about its impact and questioned how the new rules would be rolled out.
“The world changed so quickly, it’s really great,” said a manager at a tech company in Beijing. We are returning to normal life for me. This is important to me because if I don’t get back to a normal life, I will lose my mind.
How can it change so quickly? Ding asked. “It gives me the feeling that we are like fools. It’s all up to them. They said it’s good, so then it’s good … that’s what I feel right now. I have no choice, it is just so amazing. All I can do is follow the arrangement.”
David Wang, a writer in Shanghai, said the changes were welcome but also caused a sense of disbelief in the city, which saw a two-month-long, citywide lock-up earlier this year.
“Of course I was very happy about these new changes – (but) most of my friends are showing typical signs of PTSD, they just can’t believe it’s happening,” he said.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/china/china-zero-covid-relaxation-reaction-intl-hnk/index.html
What Do Top Health Officials and Chinese Public Health officials Tell Us About Omicron? After 13 Years, Covid-19 Has Been Revisited
Top health officials in Beijing on Wednesday said the changes to the rules were based on scientific evidence, including the spread of the comparatively milder Omicron variant, the vaccination rate, and China’s level of experience in responding to the virus.
Last Wednesday, top health officials made a sweeping rollback of the mass testing, centralized quarantine, and health code tracking rules that it had relied on to control viral spread. Home isolation of cases remains, as does health code use in designated places, as well as central quark of severe cases.
The government and state media had long emphasized the dangers of the virus and its potential long-term effects – and used this to justify the maintenance of restrictive policies.
Now, a flood of articles highlighting the more mild nature of Omicron and downplaying its risks have created a feeling of whiplash for some, and fall well short of the kind of public messaging campaigns that some other countries carried out before their own pandemic policy changes.
Public health officials in the US and countries around the world have been discussing their concerns about this and possible actions that could be taken to monitor the case surge, the officials said.
There were many reports of panic buying offever medications on Thursday morning while topics related to what to do if acquired by Omicron spiked high on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform.
“People were not told what kind of medicine they should have and what they should do if infected until there was widespread infection. In fact, we should have started doing this a long, long time ago,” said Sam Wang, 26, a lawyer in Beijing, who added that the policy release felt “sudden and arbitrary.”
The mother of the graduate student in Beijing who tested positive for the disease stayed up all night worrying about him, even though he said he wasn’t afraid. “She finds the virus a very, very scary thing,” Li said.
People in more cosmopolitan urban centers may be more inclined to support reopening the country and relaxing rules because of the fears of Covid-19 within China.
Covid-19 Reopening: A “Hastiness and Chaos” in the Public Health System of China, says C.S. Huang
He said his mother was buying high-grade N95 masks and readying for a “nuclear winter” until a wave of cases passed.
As local authorities adjust to the guidelines, there has been some contradiction in how the guidelines are implemented, and people are looking to see the effect in their cities.
In Beijing, authorities on Wednesday said a health code showing a negative Covid-19 test would still be required for dining in at restaurants or entering some entertainment venues – in conflict with the national guidelines.
The health code was yellow and so she could not go to public places until she took another test that came back a negative result. She stayed at home to wait and see, even though she knew she could largely go out on her own.
The move follows the government’s snap announcement last week that it was ending many of the most draconian measures. That follows three years of lockdowns, travel restrictions and quarantines on those moving between provinces and cities, mandated testing, and requirements that a clean bill of health be shown to access public areas.
But the government hasn’t stated the goal of its new policy, which could create confusion, says Huang. It is a foregone conclusion that the reopening will be a messy and hasty process because local governments ditch all the zero-COVID measures without investing seriously in preparing for the transition.
But researchers say some aspects of the new rules are ambiguous and open to interpretation by local governments, including when and where to test people during an outbreak, what defines high-risk areas and how to manage them.
In China, it will be challenging to limit transmission in densely populated high-rise buildings. Allowing people to quarantine at home will contribute to viral spread, says George Liu, a public-health researcher at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. This could overwhelm hospitals.
The timing of the reopening is not ideal, say researchers. Hospitals are already seeing a rise in patients during the peak of the flu season. And many people will also be travelling across the country for next month’s Lunar New Year and spring festival, further increasing viral spread, says Xi Chen, an economist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who studies China’s public-health system.
China doesn’t have a strong system for primary medical care system, such as a network of general practitioners, so people go to hospital for mild conditions, says Xi Chen, who hopes more details on how the government plans to triage care will emerge in the coming days.
A sociologist at a UK university says that the easing of the restrictions will not help businesses recover from lengthy lock ups or remove the social stigma associated with COVID-19. “I’m afraid that the health and socio-economic risk will be passed on to individuals.”
Cowling says that urgent guidance is needed on how to curb transmission during surge, such as through mask mandates, work-from- home policies and temporary school closings. And given the reduction in testing, it is not clear how officials will track whether cities are approaching, or have passed, the peak of an infection wave, he says.
If hasty changes are made, they may not be enough time to make sure older people receive vaccine. Currently, some 70% of people aged 60 or older, and 40% of those aged 80 or more, have received a third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
The guidelines suggest setting up mobile clinics and training medical staff to address people’s safety concerns. But they stop short of issuing vaccine mandates or introducing strong incentives for local governments to increase their vaccination rates, says Huang. Whether the inevitable rise in infections will lead to a spike in deaths remains to be seen. The full impact is still to be unfolded, says he.
COVID-19 in China: How well can the health system handle a global pandemic now that the mobile itinerary card is out of business?
Editor’s Note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.
On Monday authorities announced that the health tracking function on the mobile itinerary card would be deactivating on the following day.
There were many Chinese people who felt that it was a point of contention due to the data collection and the use by local governments to ban entry to people who have visited a city with a high-risk zone.
There are questions about how the health system will handle a mass outbreak now that the zero-covid infrastructure is being scrapped.
Media outlet China Youth Daily documented hours-long lines at a clinic in central Beijing on Friday, and cited unnamed experts calling for residents not to visit hospitals unless necessary.
Health workers in the capital were also grappling with a surge in emergency calls, including from many Covid-positive residents with mild or no symptoms, with a hospital official on Saturday appealing to residents in such cases not to call the city’s 911-like emergency services line and tie up resources needed by the seriously ill.
The daily volume of emergency calls had surged from its usual 5,000 to more than 30,000 in recent days, Chen Zhi, chief physician of the Beijing Emergency Center said, according to official media.
Covid was spreading quickly due to the presence of highly transmissible Omicron variant in China, according to a top Covid-19 expert.
“No matter how strong the prevention and control is, it will be difficult to completely cut off the transmission chain,” Zhong, who has been a key public voice since the earliest days of the pandemic in 2020, was quoted saying by Xinhua.
The rapid rollback of testing nationwide and the shift by many people to use antigen tests at home has also made it difficult to gauge the extent of the spread, with official data now appearing meaningless.
China’s response to the COVID-19 crisis: Implications for a global health system and general public perceptions of the lack of public support
Experts have warned that China may be unprepared to cope with a surge of cases after it lifted its measures in the wake of nationwide protests.
The National Health Commission wants to increase the rate of vaccine for older Chinese. That is important to avoiding a health care crisis.
Facing a surge in COVID-19 cases, China is setting up more intensive care facilities and trying to strengthen hospitals’ ability to deal with severe cases.
China’s market watchdog said on Friday that there was a “temporary shortage” of some “hot-selling” drugs and vowed to crackdown on price gouging, while major online retailer JD.com last week said it was taking steps to ensure stable supplies after sales for certain medications surged 18 times that week over the same period in October.
A hashtag trending on China’s heavily moderated social media platform Weibo over the weekend featured a state media interview with a Beijing doctor saying people who tested positive for Covid-19 but had no or mild symptoms did not need to take medication to recover.
People who have no symptoms do not need medication at all. It is enough to rest at home, maintain a good mood and physical condition ,” Li Tongzeng, chief infectious disease physician at Beijing You An Hospital, said in an interview linked to a hashtag viewed more than 370 million times since Friday.
BEIJING (AP) — China will drop a travel tracing requirement as part of an uncertain exit from its strict “zero-COVID” policies that have elicited widespread dissatisfaction.
In Beijing and other cities last month, protests over the restrictions grew into demands for the leader of the Communist Party to step down, a level of public political expression not seen in decades.
COVID-19 is Back: The Ups and Downs of the Chinese Economy and the Implications for Health Care in the Light of Beijing
The relaxation has been met with relief, but also caused a new wave of infections, which have caused concern about the availability of health care in some areas.
The government reversed its position after allowing mild symptom sufferers to recuperate at home rather than being sent to field hospitals where there have been overcrowding and poor hygiene.
The Chinese internet reports that the restrictions would be dropped and that economic activity would soon be back to pre-pandemic levels.
China’s leaders had long praised “zero-COVID” for keeping numbers of cases and deaths much lower than in other nations, but health officials are now saying the most prevalent omicron variety poses much less of a risk.
Protests erupted Nov. 25 after 10 people died in a fire in the northwestern city of Urumqi. Many believed COVID-19 restrictions may have impeded rescue efforts. Authorities denied the claims spread online, but demonstrators gave voice to longstanding frustration in cities such as Shanghai that have endured severe lockdowns.
Xi’s government promised to reduce the cost and disruption after the economy shrank by 2.6% from the previous quarter in the three months ending in June. Forecasters say the economy probably is shrinking in the current quarter. In November, imports fell 10.8% compared to a year ago.
Amid the unpredictable messaging from Beijing, experts warn there still is a chance the ruling party might reverse course and reimpose restrictions if a large-scale outbreak ensues.
Last week’s announcement allowed considerable room for local governments to assign their own regulations. Most restaurants in Beijing still require a negative test result over the previous 24 hours and government offices are even more strict than that.
The Lunar New Year Student Travel Rush: Beijing’s Turn in the CdV, China’s Most Violent Medicine, and a Break in the Communist Party Control Measures
Some Chinese universities say they’ll allow students to finish the semester from home in order to reduce the chance of a bigger outbreak during the lunar new year travel rush.
It wasn’t clear how many schools were taking part, but universities in Shanghai and nearby cities said students would be given the option of either returning home early or staying on campus and undergoing testing every 48 hours. The Lunar New Year, which falls on Jan. 22 this year, is traditionally China’s busiest travel season.
Universities have been the scene of frequent lockdowns over the past three years, occasionally leading to clashes between the authorities and students confined to campus or even their dorm rooms.
The government has changed the seriousness of the COVID-19 and has dropped the requirement for people who have the virus to be kept out of public places. That added to a rapid drumbeat of steps to dismantle controls that had been expected to stay in place at least through mid-2023.
Beijing’s streets have grown eerily quiet, with lines forming outside fever clinics — the number of which has been increased from 94 to 303 — and at pharmacies, where cold and flu medications are harder to find.
Travelers who come from abroad will not be required to go through a quarium when they arrive on Jan. 8. Foreign companies welcomed the change as an important step to revive slumping business activity.
Many people are testing themselves at home and not going to the hospital, as the number of infections continues to increase, but the ease of control measures on the mainland means a drop in testing from which daily infections numbers are compiled.
China’s government-supplied figures have not been independently verified and questions have been raised about whether the ruling Communist Party has sought to minimize numbers of cases and deaths.
China’s National Health Commission Scaled Down its COVID-19 Report on Tuesday – no evidence of a surge in the number of confirmed cases
The U.S. consulates in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang and the central city of Wuhan will offer only emergency services from Tuesday “in response to increased number of COVID-19 cases,” the State Department said.
“Mission China makes every effort to ensure full consular services are accessible to U.S. citizens living in the PRC but further disruptions are possible,” the message said.
BEIJING (AP) — China’s National Health Commission scaled down its daily COVID-19 report starting Wednesday in response to a sharp decline in PCR testing since the government eased anti-virus measures after daily cases hit record highs.
A notice on the commission’s website said it stopped publishing daily figures on numbers of COVID-19 cases where no symptoms are detected since it was “impossible to accurately grasp the actual number of asymptomatic infected persons,” which have generally accounted for the vast majority of new infections. There are confirmed cases detected in public testing facilities.
Two centers set up in Beijing to give shots to the elderly were empty Tuesday, just one of which was staffed by medical personnel. There was no evidence of a big surge in patient numbers.
At the China-Japan Friendship Hospital’s fever clinic in Beijing, a dozen people waited for nucleic acid test results. In patients, nurses in protective gear checked in one by one.
A group of people are waiting in a line of blue tents in the cold, at a hospital few kilometers south. One person in the queue took out a bottle of disinfectant and sprayed it around her as she waited.
Across the street at Gaoji Baikang Pharmacy, around a dozen people waited in line for cough medication and Chinese herbal remedies. “Don’t panic, we are doing all we can to stock up for your needs” was the sign at the front. The man who bought the two packages said that he would only allow the customer to buy a maximum of two packages.
Hospitals have also reportedly been struggling to remain staffed, while packages were piling up at distribution points because of a shortage of China’s ubiquitous motorized tricycle delivery drivers.
The reopening of China and the frustration of missing work and family visits during the 2008-2009 pandemic — by May Ma, 28, as reported by the Chinese Health Commission
The restrictions have prevented most Chinese from traveling abroad, limited face-to-face diplomatic exchanges and sharply reduced the number of foreigners in China for work and study.
According to the Chinese health commission, they will take steps to make it easier for some foreigners to enter the country. It did indicate that Chinese would be gradually allowed to travel abroad for tourism again, an important source of revenue for hotels and related businesses in many countries.
The move followed rare public protests against the restrictions, which have slowed the economy, putting people out of work and driving restaurants and shops out of business.
The strategy was forced to be continually-wider in its lockdowns due to the rapid spread of the omicron variant.
China’s partial reopening has been met with an outpouring of joy and relief from citizens — both the hundreds of millions isolated inside the country for the past three years and those overseas separated from their loved ones.
The border remains largely closed to foreigners, apart from a limited number of business or family visits — though the government signaled Monday this could loosen, too.
“Finally, everybody can (live) their normal life,” said one Chinese national living in New York, who hasn’t been home for four years. She called the separation “very painful,” saying several of her family members and the beloved pet dog she grew up with had died during that time.
Her family “missed (my graduation). She said that they missed many things. I missed a lot of things for my family. All my friends, they got married during the pandemic. Some of them had babies. I missed a lot of important points in their lives.
May Ma, 28, has been unable to go home for nearly three years while living in South Korea. The worst thing about the quarantine requirements had been worrying about her grandparents’ health, and not knowing if she’d be able to return in time to say goodbye if anything were to happen, she said.
Throughout the pandemic, “the scariest thing was … not knowing where the end is, not knowing when I can go back,” she said. “I definitely feel very happy, I can finally see the end.”
China’s border frontier quarantine travel rebounded by three-years after Trip.com topped the search volume during Lunar New Year holiday season
Those within China are also celebrating and anticipating outbound travel. Most have not left the country for several years and are now flooding booking sites to plan long-awaited vacations.
Data shows that searches for flights and hotels spiked to a three-year peak on the Trip.com website. Searches for popular destinations increased tenfold within half an hour of the announcement, with many people searching for outbound group tours during the Lunar New Year holiday season in late January, data shows.
Macao, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, the United States and the United Kingdom were among the website’s top 10 destinations with the fastest growth in search volume since the announcement.
Cases have skyrocketed since China abandoned zero- Covid. Family members that had waited more than a day to say goodbye to loved one were lined up at the Beijing crematorium when CNN visited last week.
“I feel like right now, it’s totally a mess,” said the Chinese national in New York. Everybody is sick. I don’t believe it is the best time to visit my family. Probably two or three months later.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/china-border-quarantine-travel-reax-intl-hnk/index.html
China’s decision to end quarantines for foreigners and “temporary emergency measures” to help revive economic activity in the country’s largest airports
A few overseas destinations are on guard. Officials in Italy’s northern Lombardy region have asked Milan’s Malpensa airport — one of the country’s largest international airports — to conduct PCR tests for all arrivals from China from now until the end of January.
“It doesn’t matter if I can get back in time for Spring Festival,” said Ma in South Korea, referring to Lunar New Year. “There is hope after all, I can bear waiting for a little while longer.”
BEIJING — Companies welcomed China’s decision to end quarantines for travelers from abroad as an important step to revive slumping business activity while Japan on Tuesday announced restrictions on visitors from the country as infections surge.
The Communist Party’s decision to lift some of the strictest anti-viruses controls came as it tries to reverse an economic downturn. curbs were put in place to restrict people from living in their homes, but they have ended as the virus has spread and hospitals are flooded with patients.
The British Chamber of Commerce expressed hope China will restart normal processing of business visas to allow “resumption of crucial people to people exchanges.” It said that will “contribute to restoring optimism and reinstating China as a priority investment destination.”
Meanwhile, Japan said all visitors from China will undergo virus tests starting Friday as a “temporary emergency measure” in response to the country’s flood of infections.
“The Chinese government has always followed the principle of science-based and targeted measures,” said Wang Wenbin. He called for a “science-based response and coordinated approach” to keep travel safe and “promote a steady and sound recovery of the world economy.”
Starting last month, however, the ruling party has gradually joined the United States and other governments that are trying to live with the virus by treating infections instead of imposing blanket quarantines on cities or neighborhoods.
The ruling party made some changes in order to reduce disruptions. There was more change announced after protests broke out in other cities.
Lu believes that the government should have done the job in a more systematic way. “Although the death rate of this disease is not as serious as at the beginning, the first shock has still been quite severe.”
The National Health Commission changed COVID-19 from being a Class A infectious disease to a Class B disease, and removed it from the list of illnesses that have to be isolated. It said that authorities would no longer track down close contact and put areas at high or low risk of infections.
The US is considering imposing new Covid-19 measures for individuals traveling from China amid concerns over a rise in Covid-19 cases in the country and a “lack of transparent data,” US officials said.
“The US is following the science and advice of public health experts, consulting with partners, and considering taking similar steps we can take to protect the American people,” the officials said.
Wang said that China wanted to work with other parties to tackle the epidemic and keep the global industrial chain supply chain stable.
The National Immigration Administration of China: Exit from China after the swine flu and the onset of the New Year (and how to prepare for it)
The country will soon start issuing ordinary visas and passports again, clearing the way for millions of Chinese to travel abroad for the upcoming New Year holiday.
The National Immigration Administration of China said it will start taking applications Jan. 8 for passports for tourists to go abroad. It will resume issuing approvals for businesses and travelers to visit Hong Kong, a Chinese territory with its own border controls.
The agency will accept applications for visas and permits. The government will gradually resume permitting in foreign visitors, and give no indication of when full scale tourist travel from abroad might be allowed.
China was the top market for foreign tourists in Asia before the swine Flu hit, and Europe and the United States also relied on it.
The American Chamber of Commerce in China says more than 70% of companies that responded to a poll this month expect the impact of the latest wave of outbreaks to last no more than three months, ending in early 2023.