China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced on June 28 that it was removing the asterisk from citizens’ travel and health codes, which indicates whether someone had been in a medium- or high-risk pandemic area in the past 14 days (the figure has been adjusted to seven days since July 8).
Governments used the code as an indicator to judge whether or not a visitor should be put into quarantine, and for how long.
The removal of the asterisk was seen as a signal that China is somewhat relaxing its pandemic controls. The same day, the State Council announced that quarantine for inbound arrivals and close contacts was reduced from 14 days in central quarantine and seven days self-monitoring at home to seven days in central quarantine and three days self-monitoring at home. Wu Zunyou, chief expert at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said the removal of the asterisk aims to promote personnel turnover and economic development, but he emphasized that the removal does not mean that China has abandoned its dynamic zero-Covid policy.
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