Chinese start planning trips after announcing the end of mandatory quarantine

On Monday (26) night, the government announced that from January 8th, people coming from abroad will not be required to remain in quarantine when they arrive at China, another step towards dismantling the policy of 'covid zero' which sparked protests in the country in recent months.

The easing of measures also caused a significant increase in cases nationwide, to the point that authorities stated that it is “impossible” to track the number of infections and stopped publishing daily reports of the disease.

Xi Jinping calls for measures to 'protect' lives amid the explosion of Covid-19 cases in China

The President of China, Xi Jinping, asked this Monday (26) that authorities adopt measures to “effectively protect” the lives of his compatriots in the face of the spread of Covid-19, in his first public statements since Beijing eased health restrictions.

The National Health Commission also modified the criteria for counting victims of Covid-19, starting to record only people who died from respiratory failure caused by the infection, which according to analysts will hide the number of deaths from the current outbreak.

After easing Covid, China says it is 'impossible' to track contagions

Covid-19 cases have soared in China. According to the country's health authorities, it is “impossible” to track the extent of infections there. In addition, authorities also warned of a rapid spread of the disease after they abolished the zero tolerance policy against Covid.

Searches for flights abroad soared after the announcement, state media reported.

The travel platform Tongcheng recorded an 850% increase in searches and a 1.000% increase in requests for visa information. Already the trip.com stated that the volume of searches increased 10 times compared to the same period last year just half an hour after the government's announcement.

The most popular destinations are Macau, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand and South Korea, according to the company.

(To AFP)

Read also

Pandemic left more than 40 thousand children motherless in Brazil, study shows

The covid-19 pandemic left 40.830 children and adolescents motherless in Brazil by the end of 2021, as shown in a study by researchers from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) and the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), published in the scientific journal Archives of Public Health.