The Chinese government announced it will be going a bit easy on restrictions and entry procedures for arriving foreigners. Following their footsteps, Macau also quickly lowered the restrictions on its borders.
On Friday, November 11, China’s National Health Commission confirmed that starting from 12th November, foreigners will only be required to quarantine in a government-approved hotel for five days. Previously the quarantine requirement was for seven days.
Foreigners will still have to spend three days in self-isolation following the quarantine before being allowed to interact with the general public.
The People’s Republic refers to the revised entry policy structure as the “5+3” quarantine plan. “7+3” was the old arrangement, which stood for seven days of quarantine and three days of self-isolation.
China will also require one negative nucleic acid test result that is finished within 48 hours of arrival as of Saturday. Before that, people had to wait for two negative tests.
Foreigners are only permitted to leave their hotel room or another place of lodging during the three-day self-isolation after testing negative that day and uploading documentation of the result to the nation’s electronic Health Code monitoring portal.
After being accepted, the Health Code app will show green on the QR code, indicating that the person is not at risk of spreading Covid-19.
While Macau itself is an autonomous enclave with its own government, legal system, and financial system, even after that, Macau is sheltered by Mainland China. Macau closely follows the same security measures for Covid-19 as China in exchange.
Due to the China Zero Covid Policy Macau was also following, the casino operators were facing huge losses as the policy prevented gambling in the world’s richest gaming hub.
Investors jumped on the China news, anticipating a significant recovery after the policy change. The four publicly traded casino operators in the United States with Macau licenses saw significant gains in early trading on Friday.
Las Vegas Sands shares climbed more than 5.5%, Wynn Resorts was up 7.25%, MGM Resorts improved 2.7%, and Melco Resorts was the big winner, those shares increasing more than 10.5%.
On Friday, Macau declared that it would similarly stop starting mass testing rounds at the regional level. In the past, when there were fresh COVID-19 clusters, the SAR ordered many of these tests.
Although the market has yet to fully recover from the effects of the policies in the last two years, the new policies do slightly improve the inflow of foreign visitors.
The whole world is waiting for China to give up on the Zero Covid policy and normally coexist with Covid as long as it lasts. The people in China are also frustrated with how smartphone app is telling them where they can go or where they can’t.
