China to scrap COVID quarantine rule for inbound travellers

China will stop requiring inbound travellers to go into quarantine starting from Jan. 8, the National Health Commission said on Monday in a major step
towards easing curbs on its borders, which have been largely shut since 2020.
China’s management of COVID-19 will also be downgraded to the less strict Category B from the current top-level Category A, the health authority said in a statement, as the disease has become less virulent and will gradually evolve into a common respiratory infection.
Three years of zero-tolerance measures, from shuttered borders to frequent lockdowns, have battered China’s economy, fuelling last month the mainland’s biggest show of public discontent since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012.
But China made an abrupt policy U-turn this month, dropping nearly all of its domestic COVID curbs in a move that has left hospitals across the country scrambling to cope with a nationwide wave of infections.