Thanks ! Appreciate it.

Same here in Handan.....For lunch today, I'm just about to cook a 2 year old Christmas pudding I found at the back of the food cupboard....It's the blitz spirit that's going to get us Brit's through this mess.....

Not to worry, the Cider will have kept it fresh!

Everyone my wife normally talks to over there is locked down. All are in contact.

After omicron China's response doesn't really make sense at all. It is much more contagious than the previous strains, but it's milder. China seriously should reconsider it's zero covid policy, like the rest of the world is doing. Even Australia did that and opened their borders for foreigners in the end.
Here in Norway everything is back to 2019 , all corona related t restrictons have ended (that includes international travel) which means that if you could enter Norway pre march 2020 you can do it now without any restrictions like testing etc. There are still people dying of course of covid 19 but the median age has rised from 85 to 86 which is an age range many people die anyway.

Anyway I hope China somewhere in the future allows for international travel, but it doesn't seem to happen any time soon with the strict zero covid 19 policy they have in place.

Yes, well, it is widely acknowledged that China's covid strategy is all politics now.

Does the Kingdom have an Exit strategy of COVID, after so many self-inflicted wounds?

From Sinocism:
Really the government is trying to ensure social stability over everything else. I honestly think they are not too concerned about the case numbers because they have an extremely high threshold of "dying from Covid" (i.e. it needs to be the main cause of death, but many deaths of people with covid are attributed to something else)*. As long as people aren't too upset, no reason to change anything.
* source: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3abm...-toll-lockdown

What would be annoying is that the wave ends at some point (either naturally or through more underreporting of case numbers) and then borders are still closed, because of some silly reason. Like what Hong Kong is doing.

Was able to make contact , thanks ! Was told everything is A-OK and there is nothing to worry about.....

Was able to make contact , thanks ! Was told everything is A-OK and there is nothing to worry about.....

There is no coronavirus in Ba Sing Se.

Borders have only gotten closed tighter from 2020 to 2021 to now in 2022 where they require 4 separate Covid tests over a week just to get on the plane which you now have to pay $9000 for an economy ticket to China.

The message is quite clear. China wants to shut itself off from the world. I hate this since I�ve based my career and life here for the last 20+ years, but it�s a reality I�m beginning to accept.

We are not ever going back to 2019 levels of access to China for both people and foreign businesses, unless there is a change in leadership. The current guy seems like he�s happy to bring China back a few decades as long as he�s the guy running the place.

And regarding shutting itself off, China is making it very hard for people to leave the country (Chinese people that is, I presume foreigners have no issues). My friend is trying to do it but you have to get through immigrant, who may just tear up your papers.

The door to HK is still wide-open. As HK just announced its own reopening to non-residents starting 1 May, that provides another avenue for those who want to enter China. Obviously an extra 7 days of quarantine in HK as well as flight ban uncertainties need to be factored in.

As HK relaxes, China will treat HK as if AU or US (I don�t think we�ll be allowed to get that far. I�m happy to be proven wrong).