BEIJING: All passengers arriving from overseas will undergo five days of quarantine at designated sites plus three days of home quarantine, reduced from the previous seven-day quarantine at designated sites plus three-day health monitoring at home, according to a notice released by the State Council Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism Against COVID-19 on November 11, laying out 20 measures aimed at optimizing pandemic control.
The notice was released following a meeting held by the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on November 10, which produced the 20 measures after hearing a report on COVID-19 prevention and control. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting.
These measures would make COVID-19 prevention and control more scientific and targeted, so as to protect people’s lives and health to the greatest extent, and minimize the impact of the pandemic on economic and social development, Fu Linghui, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics, said on November 15 at a press conference on the country’s recent economic performance.
In addition to shortened quarantine periods for inbound travelers, the notice read quarantine periods for close contacts of confirmed cases (cases presenting symptoms) have been cut to five days of quarantine at designated sites plus three days of home quarantine, from the previous seven days of quarantine at designated sites plus three days of health monitoring at home.
Secondary close contacts of confirmed cases will no longer be identified. The categories of COVID-19 risk areas should be adjusted from high, medium and low, to high and low to minimize the number of personnel in quarantine or under health monitoring.
The notice scrapped the previous practice of suspending flight routes if inbound international flights on those routes carried a certain number of COVID-19 cases, and changed the negative COVID-19 test result requirement for inbound travelers from twice in the 48 hours before boarding to once. The notice said that inbound high-level business travelers and sports groups arriving in China from overseas should be exempted from quarantine and directly transferred to closed-loop bubbles via designated vehicles.
–The Daily Mail-Beijing review news exchange item
