It is business as usual and great joy for travelers headed to inland China after the Chinese government relaxed the mandatory quarantine for all inbound travelers.
After three years, mainland China opened sea and land crossings with Hong Kong and ended a requirement for incoming travelers to quarantine, dismantling a final pillar of a zero-COVID policy that had shielded China’s 1.4 billion people from the virus but also cut them off from the rest of the world.
On Sunday, long queues formed at the Hong Kong international airport’s check-in counters for flights to mainland cities including Beijing, Tianjin and Xiamen. Hong Kong media outlets estimated that thousands were crossing.
China’s easing over the past month of one of the world’s tightest COVID regimes followed historic protests against a policy that included frequent testing, curbs on movement and mass lockdowns that heavily damaged the second-biggest economy.
The border opening follows Saturday’s start of “chun yun”, the 40-day period of Lunar New Year travel, which before the pandemic was the world’s largest annual migration, as people returned to their hometowns or took holidays with family.
Some 2 billion trips are expected this season, nearly double last year’s movement and recovering to 70% of 2019 levels, the government says.
China on Sunday resumed issuing passports and travel visas for mainland residents, and ordinary visas and residence permits for foreigners. Beijing has quotas on the number of people who can travel between Hong Kong and China each day.
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