Travel curbs rack up as China readies reopening

From Sunday, China will end requirement for inbound travellers to quarantine, the latest dismantling of its “zero-COVID” regime that began last month

More countries around the world are demanding that visitors from China take Covid tests, days before it dropped border controls and ushered in an eagerly awaited return to travel for a population that has been largely stuck at home for three years.

From Sunday, China will end the requirement for inbound travellers to quarantine, the latest dismantling of its “zero-Covid” regime that began last month following historic protests against a suffocating series of mass lockdowns. But the abrupt changes have exposed many of China’s 1.4 billion population to the virus for the first time, triggering an infection wave that is overwhelming some hospitals, emptying pharmacy shelves of medication and causing international alarm.

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Greece, Germany and Sweden on Thursday joined more than a dozen countries to demand Covid tests from Chinese travellers, as the World Health Organisation said China’s official virus data was under-reporting the true extent of its outbreak. Chinese officials and state media have struck a defiant tone, defending the handling of the outbreak, playing down the severity of the surge and denouncing foreign travel requirements for its residents.

“No matter how China decides to deal with the Covid-19 epidemic, some Western media and some Western politicians will never be satisfied,” the Global Times, published by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, wrote in an editorial late on Thursday.

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