China problems

When it should have been celebrating the return of international travel with the International Air Transport Association Annual General Meeting (IATA AGM) next week Shanghai is into another lockdown.

China’s second city has locked down 2.7m people to cope with a new Covid outbreak, only a week after lifting restrictions. Residents in the southwest district of Minhang are being confined to their rooms and mass testing.

The city of 25m people reported nine new infections overnight and officials have announced that residents will be placed under a strict curfew as part of plans to “dynamically discover and control pandemic risks”.

China has relaxed travel requirements for travellers from some countries. Several Chinese embassies have posted notices loosening travel requirements for passengers travelling to China. People travelling from countries including Denmark, Netherlands, Serbia, the UAE, and others will no longer have to do an antibody test in order to receive the health code required to board the plane to China. Passengers will still be required to conduct two PCR tests from two different designated test centres within 48 hours and one antigen within 12 hours of the flight departure.  British passport holders are still on the restricted list.

For US travellers, China has removed the requirements for passengers to undergo seven days of Covid-19 testing, conduct self-monitoring, and take anti-body tests prior to boarding the flight, according to a notice published on the website of the Chinese Embassy in the US.

Some 600m people travelled by air in China during 2019.  The current figures are dramatically down.

www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/china

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