ALSO SEE: Packed ICUs, Crowded Crematoriums: Covid Roils Chinese Towns

Eight days of isolation will no longer be needed, and officials say citizens’ ability to travel will be slowly restored

China will drop Covid-19 quarantine requirements for passengers arriving from abroad from 8 January, its National Health Commission has announced in the latest easing of the country’s once-strict virus-control measures.

Currently, arriving passengers must quarantine for five days at a hotel, followed by three days at home. At one stage there was a requirement to quarantine for three weeks.

The scrapping of the measure is a major step toward fully reopening travel with the rest of the world, which the government severely curtailed in a bid to keep the virus out.

The restrictions have prevented most Chinese people from travelling abroad, limited face-to-face diplomatic exchanges and sharply reduced the number of foreigners in China for work and study.

China’s health commission said that steps would be taken to make it easier for some foreigners to enter the country, though it didn’t include tourists. It did indicate that Chinese citizens would be gradually allowed to travel abroad for tourism again, an important source of revenue for hotels and related businesses in many countries.

People coming to China will still need a negative virus test 48 hours before departure and passengers will be required to wear protective masks on board planes, an online post from the health commission said.

Chinese social media users reacted with joy to the end of the restrictions that have kept the country largely closed off from the outside world since March 2020.

“It’s over … spring is coming,” said one top-voted comment on the Weibo social media site.

Online searches for flights abroad surged on the news, state media reported, with the travel platform Tongcheng seeing an 850% jump in searches and a tenfold rise in inquiries about visas.

China abruptly dropped many of its pandemic restrictions earlier this month, sparking widespread Covid outbreaks that have swamped hospital emergency facilities and funeral homes.

The move followed rare public protests against the restrictions, which have hit the economy, putting people out of work and driving restaurants and shops out of business.

For more than two and a half years, Chinese authorities enforced a strict zero-Covid approach that became a signature policy of leader Xi Jinping.

The arrival of the fast-spreading Omicron variant in late 2021 made the strategy increasingly untenable, requiring ever-wider lockdowns that stymied growth and disrupted lives.