China slashes quarantine restrictions as Covid-19 cases fall

China has cut its required quarantine period for international travellers by half, to one week, in the first significant nationwide relaxation of restrictions since outbreaks in Shanghai and Beijing this year prompted draconian curbs on travel and economic activity.

The State Council, China’s cabinet, also reduced a post-quarantine “home health monitoring” period to three days, from seven days previously, state media reported on Tuesday, and raised the thresholds that trigger positive test results.

Markets were buoyed by the announcement, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index swinging from a loss to a gain of 0.8 per cent, while China’s benchmark CSI 300 index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed stocks rallied late in the afternoon session to close up 1 per cent.

The easing brings China’s policies in line with those in Hong Kong, which also imposes a seven-day centralised quarantine requirement on arrivals. But the world’s most populous nation remains an international outlier in its commitment to President Xi Jinping’s stringent “zero Covid” approach to pandemic containment.

At the height of the Shanghai outbreak in early May, many residents in China’s largest city had been confined to their homes for 60 days.

International arrivals faced “hard quarantines” of up to 21 days during this period, and those continuing on to Beijing faced an additional 14-day lock-up in the capital.

While Beijing never imposed a citywide lockdown as in Shanghai, strict curbs on public transport and commercial activity brought large areas of the capital to a standstill for most of May.

China’s political and financial capitals have slowly returned to life over recent weeks. Monday marked the first day that zero new cases were reported in either Beijing or Shanghai, and Shanghai Disneyland announced that it would resume operations on June 30.

The announcement of the shorter quarantine period came a day after a state newspaper sparked panic when it quoted Beijing’s party secretary, Cai Qi, as saying the city would maintain Covid controls for “the next five years”.

The Beijing Daily rushed to clarify that it had misquoted Cai, a close ally of Xi who has pledged that the capital will remain a “fortress” in the fight against Covid.

Beijing successfully hosted the Winter Olympics in February and is preparing for a quinquennial Communist party congress, where Xi is expected to claim an unprecedented third five-year term as head of the party and military.

Many people had feared that China’s draconian quarantine requirements on international arrivals would remain in place until March, when the country’s parliament will formally reappoint Xi as president.

However, cities across China still routinely impose random lockdown measures when cases are discovered, as well as lengthy quarantines on arrivals from other regions deemed to be high-risk.

Everyone in China is also given a health code on their cell phones that must remain green for them to travel normally. Health codes can suddenly turn red for reasons including being in the same general area as a confirmed Covid case, or even just being a close contact of a confirmed case, prompting ad hoc home quarantines enforced by local authorities.