At least eight Chinese cities have curtailed centralized quarantine periods for international arrivals from 14 days to 10 or seven days, Chinese embassies have streamlined visa applications for foreigners.
The latest to shorten quarantine periods for international arrivals is Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. It has cut the centralized quarantine period in half to seven days for international arrivals.
An additional seven days home quarantine rule remains in place.
Cities such as Beijing, Nanjing in Jiangsu province and Wuhan in Hubei Province have shortened quarantine periods for international arrivals on a trial basis, to 7 days of centralized quarantine and another seven days of home quarantine.
International arrivals are subject to 10 days of quarantine when they arrive in the cities of Chengdu in Sichuan Province, Xiamen in Fujian Province and Ningbo in Zhejiang Province.
Several other cities, including Guangzhou, Qingdao, and Xi’an, still stick to the policy of 14 days of centralized quarantine for international arrivals.
Shortening the time for collective quarantine is being done because it takes seven days on average for the Omicron variant to leave the human body, said an expert from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who asked for anonymity, calling it a “more balanced virus prevention measure to alleviate the impact of virus prevention on exchanges with other countries.”
Chinese embassies in many countries, including France, Nigeria and Indonesia, also streamlined visa application procedures for foreigners. Those who are coming to work in China and have been approved by relevant Chinese departments don’t need to present a letter of invitation when applying for a work visa.
Family members with foreign nationalities also are exempt from submitting letters of invitation when coming to visit their relatives who work in China.
Those embassies’ policies took effect on Monday.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China said on Friday that it is negotiating with some countries to gradually and steadily increase regular international passenger flights to meet the needs of personnel exchanges.
Recently, a number of cities in Jiangsu Province have resumed daily commuting services to and from Shanghai and eased quarantine measures for travelers from the neighboring megacity. Jiangsu cities such as Nanjing, Wuxi and Yangzhou even dropped collective quarantine for people from Shanghai’s low-risk areas, only asking them to do frequent tests after arrival.
