China to reopen borders, drop Covid quarantine from January 8
- Local authorities will be stripped of the power to shut down entire communities from early next month
- The decision is the last step in the country’s pivot to living with the virus
China will reopen borders and abandon quarantine after it downgrades its treatment of Covid-19 on January 8.
At the border, the infected must be isolated and those who might be infected quarantined, depending on the incubation period.
But three sources from provincial health authorities and hospitals in Guangdong, Fujian and Jiangsu said they were notified by the National Health Commission on Sunday, asking them to prepare for the downgrade to category B management from January 8.
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That category means Covid-19 only requires “necessary treatment and measures to curb the spread”.
The Post understands from various sources that strict control measures including compulsory quarantine for travellers coming to China will also be removed after the downgrade, since it is no longer a compulsory requirement in the category B management.
There are signs that China has been preparing for the pivot, with PCR testing no longer mandatory and Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan, who has been in charge of the Covid-19 response, urging lower level authorities to focus on treatment instead of infections.
Authorities will also no longer refer to Covid-19 as a form of pneumonia.
According to a senior hospital administrator in Xiamen in the southeastern province of Fujian, the NHC said Covid-19 would be known officially as a “novel coronavirus infection” instead of the present “novel coronavirus pneumonia”.
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“The name change is subtle but important,” the administrator said.
“I think it is official recognition of the clear changes in the symptoms of infection with the Omicron variant, which is less deadly. It does not always trigger pneumonia-like symptoms.”
While Covid-19 has always been a category B infectious disease in China – a class that also includes HIV, viral hepatitis and H7N9 bird flu – authorities have managed it as category A, empowering local governments to impose strong measures such as lockdowns, isolation and quarantine.
It also allows them to enlist law enforcement to aid with disease controls.
Confirming the new directive from Beijing, a health official from the southern province of Guangdong said it would help Guangdong prepare to reopen its border with neighbouring Hong Kong.
“It sets the direction going forward on China’s Covid-19 control, which is more flexible and less disruptive to people’s lives,” he said.
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A health official from Jiangsu province in the country’s east also said the new directive was “good news” as local governments were concerned that Beijing might change tack again in the face of the huge wave of Covid infections.
“With these instructions in black and white from the central government, we can proceed firmly towards opening and restoration of normal life, without worrying about reversal of Covid-19 policies,” the Jiangsu official said.
The health sector has been expecting the Covid downgrade since the U-turn on coronavirus controls.
In an online lecture series hosted by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on December 14, Gao Fu, former head of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said China’s overall direction in Covid-19 management was to downgrade it to “a category B disease with category B control”.
Less than a week later, Sun Dongdong, a Peking University law school professor and an expert in public health law, suggested that upper respiratory tract infections from Omicron could be lowered to category C, a classification that includes influenza and mumps.
