Health

Beijing airport to reopen international terminals on Sunday

Beijing, Jan 6 (EFE).- The international terminals of the Beijing airport will reopen on Sunday, the airport authority said on Friday.

The reopening of Terminal 2 and Terminal 3-E to handle international arrivals coincides with China scrapping quarantine requirements for overseas passengers.

Since March 10, 2020, when the government implemented measures to prevent the import of COVID-19 infections into the country, foreign passengers have been entering China through Terminal 3-D at the airport.

Since then, foreigners have been required to spend several days quarantined at a designated hotel.

China also plans to downgrade the virus management on Sunday, according to the China Daily newspaper.

The health authorities announced on December 26 that they would drop COVID-19 quarantine rules for overseas travelers as China dismantled the draconian zero-tolerance policies in place since the early days of the pandemic.

International air traffic restrictions, which have been reduced to less than 5 percent of pre-pandemic levels in the last two years, will be lifted, according to National Health Commission officials.

Under the new rule, people traveling to China from overseas will not have to get the so-called “green code” before entering China but would have to produce a negative PCR test from the last 48 hours.

To shift the policy, the Commission declared that COVID-19 is no longer to be considered a category A disease, the most dangerous level that requires severe containment measures but will be considered a category B disease instead.

In recent weeks, China’s government has been easing its strict zero-Covid policy, one of the world’s strictest approaches to the pandemic and which remained in place even as many other countries scrapped measures such as mandatory masks and social distancing. EFE

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