MNI BRIEF: China Shortens Covid Quarantine For Travellers

China has shortened Covid-19 quarantine requirements for inbound travelers to eight days from 10 days, Xinhua News Agency reported citing a document with 20 measures to optimise Covid controls released on Friday.

Arrivals will now spend five days in a quarantine facility and a further three days at home, compared to the current seven days of quarantine in a hotel room followed by three days of health monitoring at home. The change also applies to close contacts. (See MNI INTERVIEW: China's Post-Covid Rebound Won't Last)

China also canceled the circuit breaker policy for inbound flights - where carriers were penalised for bringing in Covid cases - and adjusted the nucleic acid testing requirement to once within 48 hours before boarding from the previous two times.

The government also reduced the categories of risk from three to two – just high and low risk. The new rules require that high-risk areas should be limited to units and buildings, and cannot be expanded arbitrarily. These areas should be downgraded to low risk if no new infections are found for five consecutive days. People from high-risk areas now allowed 7-days home quarantine instead of being moved to centralised quarantine previously.

China will also accelerate the promotion of vaccine boosters, especially for the elderly, and the stockpiling of drugs related to the treatment of Covid-19.

Chinese stocks rallied on the news, with the Hang Seng up 6.8% and Shanghai Composite gaining 1.6%. The onshore Chinese yuan rallied to 7.07 against the U.S. dollar and was recently trading at 7.10. It had weakened to a near 15-year low of 7.32 on November 1. (See CROSS ASSET : China Tweaks ZCS, Risk-Positive Flows Ensue)