Travel sites see an uptick as China loosens international travel rules

As China announced the scrapping of mandatory Covid quarantine for overseas arrivals on Monday, the people flocked to travel websites the next day. The country has been cut off from the rest of the world for three years due to COVID curbs. This comes at a time when the zero-Covid policy has been scrapped and infections are rising rapidly in the country.

China took a snap decision on Monday, saying that from January 8 inbound travellers would no longer be required to quarantine on arrival. Just last month, people staged massive protests against President Xi Jinping and the strict Covid measures, following which it loosened its COVID policy.

Now, cases have surged nationwide and authorities say the outbreak is "impossible" to track and hence, it has done away with much-maligned official case tallies. As per official statistics, China showed only one COVID death in the past seven days through Monday. Experts fear the government data is incorrect and inconsistent with the experience of much less populous countries after they re-opened.

Hospitals are overwhelmed with five- to six-times more patients than usual, doctors say, most of them elderly. International health experts estimate millions of daily infections and predict at least one million COVID deaths in China next year.

However, despite COVID spreading throughout the country, people are overjoyed at lifting of the curbs. As per data from travel platform Ctrip, within half an hour of the news, searches for popular international destinations saw a 10-fold increase. Macau, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, South Korea were the most sought-after, Ctrip said.

Data from another platform, Qunar, showed that within 15 minutes of the news, searches for international flights jumped seven-fold, with Thailand, Japan and South Korea at the top of the list.

Meanwhile, China is also downgrading its management of the virus to the less strict Category B from the current top-level Category A from January 8, the health authority said, as it has become less virulent. The change means authorities will no longer be compelled to quarantine patients and their close contacts and lock down regions.

(With inputs from agencies)

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