China lifts travel restrictions despite surge in COVID cases, it will lift its quarantine requirement for inbound travelers starting from 8 January. But it will still demand a negative PCR test result within 48 hours before departure.
It will also resume issuing visas for residents to travel overseas.
At the same time, many countries started to impose COVID testing requirements on travelers from China.
Due to the lack of transparent data, many countries, including the US, to consider imposing new travel restrictions on people visiting from China.
On the last week of 2022, The United States authorities required all travelers from China to show a negative Covid-19 test result before flying to the country as Beijing’s rapid easing of Covid-19 restrictions leads to a surge in cases.
Passengers flying to the US from China will need to get a test no more than two days before flying, federal health officials said, and present proof of the negative test to their airline before boarding.
China, which for most of the pandemic adopted a "zero-COVID" strategy that imposed harsh restrictions aimed at stamping out the virus, abruptly eased those measures in December. Chinese authorities previously said that from Jan. 8, overseas travelers would no longer need to quarantine upon arriving in China, paving the way for Chinese residents to travel.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it is very concerned about rising reports of severe cases across China and considered the China COVID travel restrictions as understandable.
