China will maintain the current strategy to cope with Covid-19 before it is ready to reopen to the world, and it will never come at the cost of lives as some Western countries have been doing, analysts told the Global Times. There is no timeline when China will lift border restrictions, and the country will do so in the future after meeting a number of requirements, an anonymous expert said, noting that for China, with a population of 1.4 billion, random opening will result in unimaginable consequences. Currently, passengers arriving from abroad must quarantine for 21 days – 14 days in a designated hotel and seven days at home.
There are only about 200 international flights a week between China and other countries, about 2.2% of the number before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The number of international flights is not expected to increase soon due to the seriousness of the ongoing pandemic abroad, Shang Kejia, an official from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said. At present, international flights mainly guarantee the most basic connectivity with the lowest frequency, and the conditions for resumption and increase are not available for the time being, Shang noted, adding that this year's Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays are still not a good time to travel abroad. According to Shang, in July and August, China's civil aviation market saw significant declines due to the flare-up of coronavirus infections, with passenger traffic down 42% compared to 2019, and down 16.6% compared to 2020. CAAC said it will offer financial support for domestic airlines to assist them to recover from the pandemic, including lifting restrictions on cargo flights. Currently, there are around 100,000 domestic scheduled passenger flights per week, while 4,250 more flights for the Mid-Autumn Festival and 4,406 for the National Day holidays have been added to meet expected demand. CAAC data show that in August, affected by the Nanjing outbreak, the total transportation turnover, passenger transportation, and cargo volume fell by 35.6%, 51.5% and 5.6% year-on-year.
Ahead of the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday (September 19-21) and National Day holiday (October 1-7) several cities including Beijing issued notices advising residents to complete vaccinations before traveling and not to travel abroad unless absolutely necessary. Xi'an in Shaanxi province and Guilin in Guangxi even called on local residents not to leave the city unless absolutely necessary.
A new health facility – the Guangzhou International Health Station – with 5,074 isolation rooms for inbound passengers is expected to start operation in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, before the end of this month. Guangdong, with a population of more than 126 million, has become one of the major front-line areas on the mainland to intercept and manage people with Covid-19 who are entering the country. Luo Xiaodan, Deputy Director of the Infectious Disease Department at the Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, said the new station will play a big part in preventing and controlling the spread of the coronavirus. “The current quarantine hotels in the city’s downtown areas are not designed for quarantine,” she said. All inbound passengers will be sent to the station for two weeks of quarantine upon arrival in Guangzhou, so they will no longer need to be quarantined at designated hotels.
In the recent outbreak in Fujian province – affecting the cities of Putian, Xiamen, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou – over 40% of the confirmed Covid-19 cases in Putian are children under the age of 12, which under the current strategy are not being vaccinated. Between September 10 and 18, 335 Covid-19 cases were reported in Fujian province. All domestic flights departing from Xiamen, a city with a population of 5 million, were suspended on September 20 until further notice. The Chinese authorities are now considering to expand vaccination to children between the ages of 3 and 12. China has so far delivered more than 2.16 billion vaccine doses and fully vaccinated over 1.01 billion people. More than 170 million doses had been administered to people aged 12 to 17, covering nearly 95.3 million minors. In addition, 390 million doses had been delivered to people aged 60 and above, covering 200 million elderly.
The Chinese authorities pledged that there would be no Covid infections at the 14th National Games, which opened on September 15 at the Xi'an Olympic Sports Center. Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the opening ceremony. Analysts said the epidemic prevention of the National Games is more comprehensive and stricter than that of the Tokyo Olympic Games, and the closed-loop management system will likely create a standard to be followed by the Beijing Winter Olympics. A total of 46,200 people – performers, athletes, spectators, technicians, security guards, other staffers and officials – are expected to attend the Games. Fang Guanghua, Vice Governor of Shaanxi and Secretary General of the 14th National Games Organizing Committee, said that organizers adhere to the principle of “one plan for one game, one plan for one group, one plan for one venue” to ensure zero Covid-19 cases. The 14th National Games from September 15 to 27 are the first major comprehensive sports event in China since the start of the pandemic. There were 430 Covid-19 cases reported at the Tokyo Olympics.
This overview is based on reports by the China Daily, Global Times, Shanghai Daily and South China Morning Post.
