China cuts Covid quarantine rules while Guangzhou nears lockdown
China has eased coronavirus quarantine requirements for close contacts and international travellers, in the first marginal relaxation of Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid strategy since the policy was reaffirmed at the Communist party congress last month.
The State Council, China’s cabinet, pared the mandatory quarantine for close contacts of positive Covid-19 cases and overseas arrivals from seven days to five, while maintaining three further days of home isolation.
In practice, both quarantine procedures, which are carried out in centralised government facilities, have often been enforced for longer than the mandated periods. The latest changes also included ending the tracing of second-degree close contacts of confirmed positive cases.
The newly announced measures also called for an escalation of China’s vaccination campaign, particularly among the elderly, who have been the most hesitant to accept Covid jabs. Experts said increasing the vaccination rate of seniors was essential to any eventual reopening.
In late June, Chinese authorities halved the quarantine requirement for international arrivals from two weeks to one, and reduced the home self-isolation period from seven days to three, in what was then the first significant relaxation of restrictions since the lockdowns in Shanghai and Beijing.
China-focused equities were buoyed by the announcement on Friday, with the CSI 300 index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed stocks closing up 2.8 per cent, having traded as much as 3.8 per cent higher following the announcement.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng China Enterprises index, which tracks mainland companies listed in the city, rose 8.3 per cent on Friday, having been up 5.5 per cent earlier in the day in the wake of Wall Street’s best one-day gain in two years.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Ryan McMorrow
