After the end of the zero-Covid policy, China reopens to foreign countries. So book a flight to the land of the rising sun now? Better not, says the Foreign Office and advises against unnecessary trips. A massive corona wave is currently rolling through China.
Due to the current corona wave in China, the federal government advises against unnecessary trips to the Asian country. This was announced by the Federal Foreign Office’s Crisis Response Center on Saturday in the short message service Twitter. The reason given was “the peak level of Covid19 infections and the overburdened health system”. The Federal Foreign Office also announced that China would be classified as an “imminent virus variant area” from Monday.
After the end of the zero-Covid policy, China reopens to foreign countries. According to the authorities, the almost three-year isolation ends this Sunday. But it will take months for travel to return to normal. Even the unchanged low number of international flights from China limits the number of travelers. For fear of new virus variants in the huge corona wave in the most populous country, Germany and many other countries require travelers to take a negative corona test before departure, which must not be more than 48 hours old.
Despite the opening, no major wave of travel from China is expected. The number of flights from China abroad is currently only around ten percent of the volume before the pandemic. The tickets are very expensive. The authorities want to issue or extend passports again – but primarily for business and study trips. Conversely, China’s embassies want to issue more visas again. But here, too, primarily business, work and study visits as well as family visits are made possible.
The opening of the country follows a month after the abrupt reversal in the rigorous zero-Covid strategy implemented since 2020, which had been implemented with lockdowns, mass testing and forced quarantine. Since then, a massive wave of infections has been rolling through China, hitting hospitals completely unprepared. There are also many dead, so that crematoria are overwhelmed.
