Why do people want to enter and leave the country?

As soon as the news came out, only 15 minutes, the search volume of international air tickets on an OTA (online travel) platform increased by 7 times. The data of another platform also shows that the search volume of overseas popular destinations rose by 10 times in half an hour, and the search for outbound air tickets and hotels (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) reached the peak in three years.

Some international students have put their return to China on the agenda, and many are ready to arrange long-lost outbound travel. At the beginning of COVID-19's rampage, the entry and exit safety was strictly observed with the requirement of "external defense input". Later, the international passenger flights were changed from 14+ 14+7 to 7+3 and 5+3 to 0+0, and the fuse mechanism for inbound flights was changed to cancel the "five ones". It can be seen that China's entry-exit policy combines factors such as virus incubation period and pathogenicity, and dynamically adjusts the trajectory according to time and situation, which is quite obvious.

Data Map: Foreigner Entry and Exit Service Area

As we all know, the "closed control" policy of the epidemic in the past two years has dealt a devastating blow to the comprehensive tourism service industry with outbound travel as its main source of income.

The Annual Report on the Development of Outbound Tourism in China (2022-2023) shows that the number of outbound tourists in China decreased by 400 million from 2020 to 2022. After the suspension of outbound travel business, the performance of related tourism enterprises was seriously damaged.

However, with the liberalization of the entry-exit policy, I am afraid that the worst days of tourism have passed, and tourism demand is expected to bottom out after opening up.

It will take time to fully resume entry and exit. Referring to the open market, Japan and South Korea announced the opening of cross-border tourism in the middle of the year, but so far, the number of people entering and leaving the country has not recovered to the level before the epidemic, and local consumption is still dominated by restaurants and hotels, and then long-distance travel and entry and exit will be slower.

At present, the entry and exit policies of major countries are as follows:

United States: fully vaccinated, inbound passengers can enter the country by signing the declaration form.

Japan: People vaccinated with three doses of domestic vaccine do not need to be quarantined when entering the country. Those who have not been vaccinated are required to provide a negative nucleic acid certificate within 72 hours before entry.

Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand: Normal entry without quarantine.

Image source: Baidu.com

Facing the full liberalization of entry and exit and the recovery of tourism, it also means contacting more and more complicated strains!

What strains are there now?

Image source: Baidu.com

At present, the domestic strains are generally strain BF.7 and strain BA.5, which have been retired abroad.

The emerging strains abroad are BQ. 1. 1 and XBB.

BQ. 1. 1 strain, also known as Cerberus strain, is the dominant strain at present, accounting for the largest proportion of infected people. The forced strains BF.7 and BA.5 have nowhere to live and are deprived of their living space.

The latest strain of XBB just appeared four weeks ago. The proportion at that time was 2.7%. In just one month, the positive rate soared six times, reaching 18.3%, and it is still increasing. Medical experts predict that XBB will become the dominant strain in the United States in the next two to three weeks.

Wang Guiqiang, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases of the First Hospital of Peking University, said frankly: "Now we are infected with BF.7 and BA.5.2 If new variants appear, there is still the risk of reinfection." After the infection recovered, COVID-19 was infected again after a period of time, which was often caused by COVID-19 mutation.

So, do you choose to travel abroad or guard against new pressure?