China reduced the amount of time travelers and close contacts must spend in quarantine, and pulled back on testing, in a significant recalibration of the "COVID zero" policy that has isolated the world’s second-largest economy and raised public ire.
Travelers into China will be required to spend five days in a hotel or government quarantine facility, followed by three days confined to home, according to a National Health Commission statement Friday. The current rules require 10 days quarantine in total, with a week in a hotel then three days at home.
The same shortened quarantine length will now also be applied to close contacts of infected people, minimizing the disruptive practice of contact-tracing that has seen millions thrown into centralized facilities when officials race to stamp out spread. Close contacts of close contacts will now no longer be identified, added the statement.