Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Nucleic acid testing is required 48 hours before boarding a flight to China

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On January 13, at a press conference on the State Council’s joint prevention and control mechanism, Wu Xi, director of the consular department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, introduced that China always carries out epidemic prevention and control based on the principles of science, precision and efficiency, and dynamically adjusts and optimizes prevention and control measures. The “B class B control” does not mean that the B class “regardless” or B class “not to prevent”, to prevent the cross-border spread of the virus, to make the cross-border movement of people more convenient.

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Wu Xie said the contagiousness of the Omicron strain is on the rise, especially in long-distance cross-border travel, where passengers are in confined spaces for long periods of time, and the risk of infection is high in such cases. Therefore, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs requires incoming passengers to undergo nucleic acid testing 48 hours before boarding to prevent the spread of the virus and ensure greater safety for travelers. In order to achieve “early detection, early treatment, and early isolation” for epidemic prevention and control, customs will conduct antigen testing for passengers with symptoms or abnormal declarations after landing. If the passenger has no relevant symptoms or is not infected by the virus, these measures will not have too much impact on the travel of the passenger.

What is the difference between the management of Chinese and foreign travelers after the “B class B control” and before? Official response

In the afternoon of January 13, the State Council held a press conference on the joint prevention and control mechanism, the theme of which was “Introduction of measures to optimize the management of the movement of Chinese and foreigners. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the General Administration of Customs, the State Immigration Bureau, the Civil Aviation Bureau of the relevant departments and bureaus responsible comrades and experts from the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention attended.

At the press conference, a reporter asked, “Class B B” since the implementation of the management of the movement of Chinese and foreign personnel compared to “Class B A” what is the difference? How effective is the policy after implementation?

In response, Wu Xi, Director of the Department of Consular Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the new interim measures are based on the overall plan of “Category B” and the relevant provisions of the International Health and Quarantine Law to develop, in the drafting process we are also fully considered the development of the epidemic situation, the needs of prevention and control of the epidemic and the needs of entry and exit. We can say that the overall spirit and principles of our temporary measures is to promote the gradual normalization of Chinese and foreign personnel exchanges, of course, we will also take the necessary measures to prevent new viruses outside the country to the domestic “backflow” to prevent some new viruses outside the impact of the domestic epidemic prevention and control.

Wu Xie said that, specifically, there are several changes after the introduction of the new prevention and control measures: the first change is that the procedures for coming to China have been simplified, and we have abolished the link to declare the health code to the embassies and consulates abroad, and you can fill in the customs health declaration card after the completion of the nucleic acid 48 hours before registration in China. In addition, new measures have been taken in terms of visa facilitation, which means that visas for settlement, visit, transit, business, reunion, family visit and private affairs have been reinstated.

The second change is that there are more flights, with the removal of restrictions on the number of flights, routes and according to passenger capacity. International flights are now growing steadily. On the road and waterway side, we are also gradually opening more ports in an orderly manner.

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The third change is the abolition of the centralized quarantine of entry, when people come to China no longer need to centralized quarantine, as long as the health declaration is normal, the customs routine quarantine no problem, you can directly release into the community, if the declaration is abnormal or fever and other symptoms, the customs will carry out nucleic acid or antigen testing. If the test is positive, you will be asked to home or residence isolation, or medical treatment. This is also done for the health of the traveler and for epidemic prevention and control.

Since the implementation of the new regulations on January 8, 2023, the number of people entering and exiting the country has increased significantly, and I think the specific data will be presented by our colleagues in the Immigration Bureau in a moment. As far as we understand, the operation of various ports is very smooth and orderly, so we are also very confident that with the continuous optimization of the epidemic prevention and control measures, the movement of people between China and abroad will gradually return to normal.

State Administration of Immigration: the number of people entering and leaving the country since January 8 is steadily increasing, orderly recovery trend

State Council joint prevention and control mechanism held a press conference on the 13th, Liu Haitao, director of the Department of Border Inspection Management of the National Immigration Administration, introduced: the new coronavirus infection “B class B control” overall plan to optimize the movement of Chinese and foreign personnel to make arrangements, the National Immigration Administration also studied the development of optimal immigration management policies and measures. From the implementation of the monitoring situation since January 8, the number of people entering and leaving the country is a steady growth, orderly recovery trend.

From January 8 to 12, the national immigration authorities inspected an average of 490,000 people per day, up 48.9 percent from before the implementation of the “Class B” policy measures and 26.2 percent of the same period in 2019.

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Secondly, the sea, land and air have recovered simultaneously. The daily average number of people entering and leaving the sea, land and air ports is 21,000, 424,000 and 45,000 respectively, up 13%, 53.3% and 33.2% respectively compared with the pre-implementation period, and 36.4%, 30.1% and 11% of the same period in 2019. The air port port Shanghai Pudong International Airport has the highest passenger flow, with 11,000 passengers per day, and the land port Shenzhen Futian has the largest increase, with 21,000 passengers per day.

Third, the number of inbound is slightly higher than outbound. The daily average number of inbound passengers is 250,000, up 54.7% compared with the pre-implementation period, while the daily average number of outbound passengers is 240,000, up 43.3% compared with the pre-implementation period.