That's great news, but be forewarned that they could take on an extra 7 days up until the last moment.

I’m sure Handan will have something extra nice prepared for you upon your arrival from Shanghai!

Nothing new here.

Once you get to your destination, you will be quarantined for another 14-28 days.

This has been the practice in Shanghai.

Is it all sorts of flavors, like salted plum and squid ink, or just standard ones like vanilla and chocolate? :D

Going to get some popcorn. https://weekly.chinacdc.cn/news/Trac...htm#NHC22Mar13

March 13, 2022
Confirmed: 1,938 new, 7,230 current.
Asymptomatic: 1,455 new, 6,287 current.
Recoveries: 169 new. Deaths: 0 new.

Have any of you guys heard updates on the proposed PVG alternate(s) (for arrivals)? I'm guessing HGH, NKG, or NBO, but apparently, ~9 other airports are also being considered.

*Edited to change NNG (obviously impossible) to NKG.

I'd like to know this too. Supposed to start March 17?

It's going to be tough for other airports to replace PVG.

Local officials are scared of imported COVID. They would be fired if lot of cases show up.

Besides, other cities may not have enough quality quarantine hotels.

If they are not careful, infections would spread (a.k.a. recent Hua Ting Hotel in Shanghai).

i am guessing they will go with more than one city and that PVG will keep some flights. Since this is a central government initiative, the opinions of local officials probably don't matter much. Do you think they asked Tianjin if it wanted to accept flights that would otherwise go to Beijing?

Yeah I can understand Beijing where the emperor lives.

But Shanghai is different. Other cities could refuse.

TMK, CAAC itself is calling the shots here, so it might as well be Beijing.

As an aside, I've been pondering (and reading various WeChat accounts about) why they want to do this. The only two theories that seem somewhat plausible to me so far are: 1. to better protect Shanghai; and 2. to relieve pressure on q hotel capacity.

#1 doesn't make a great deal of sense to me because, presumably, the affected passengers who wanted to go to Shanghai would still make their way anyway after their quarantines are finished. Let's say they go with, Wuxi, for example; that's not much further from Central Shanghai than PVG.

My issue with #2 is that the number of incoming passengers has remained more or less constant for the past year and I haven't heard of any hotel availability crisis situations yet. If they were to increase capacity in a material manner, I could envision issues. However, I've seen no indications that this is in the works.

But, another way to max out q hotel rooms would be to increase the duration of the quarantine (e.g. going from 14 days to 28 days would presumably double the demand). This is something that I could see happening.

Your thoughts?

Shanghai never ran out of Q hotels in the past two years. Positive cases for international arrivals usually were 10-20 cases at most.

1) However, positive cases from HK arrivals reached hundreds. This runs out of Q hotels quickly.

2) Recent increase of additional 7 days for people who have no apartment to stay in Shanghai certainly contributes to Q hotel issue.

IMHO, 14 days are already excessive. Now 21? That's borderline insane. Of course the whole population is paranoid No.1 in the world about COVID.

They have not shut down HK flights. Do people realize why?

No, I'm dumb. Why not?
If they were serious about covid zero they would have shut down all flights from HK and closed the land border.

Whether you test positive or negative on arrival, you are still accounted for in the Q hotel numbers...but, might end up going to a hospital in the case of positive. There is no increased demand for Q hotels.

The +7 definitely isn't "recent".

Why on earth would they shut down HK flights before flights from other countries? HK is definitely more important than NY or London for most companies here.

When positive cases go up so high, don't you suspect that numbers of daily arrival pax from HK also go up significantly? Or how do you explain additional demand for Shanghai Q hotels?

Also, close contacts of positive cases might be subject to additional Q days.

Oh, +7 days in Q hotels for people staying in Shanghai but don't have own property is definitely recent. Last month?

Yes they have shut down every international flight with 5+ positive cases. Yet they have not shut down HK flights. We are not debating they should shut down HK flights before other international flights. We are talking about shutting all other int'l flights with small positive cases but allow HK flights to continue with huge positive cases.

With hundreds of positive cases from HK arrivals, it's almost like they are inviting imported cases from HK.

COVID is No.1 priority in the Kingdom. But why on the earth they are letting so many positive cases come from HK? They shut down Yun Nan border in a day.

Folks, please think hard.

Can you please just say what your theory is clearly?

My dumb optimistic theory is still here:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/34003232-post1367.html
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/34032001-post53.html (I guess 1 and 2 were wrong, but the point is HK is the scapegoat and the narrative will start to shift).

The mainland government has no clue how to actually deal with any case numbers >1000, so it's also possible they're just doing random things and the optimistic theory becomes true not out of policy/narrative shifting but out of necessity.

I am not sure how to explain the increase in demand for q hotels (if there has been one yet), but there is no correlation between positive cases and demand.

If they are Shanghai residents, they do q in their own houses. To date, q hotels are only used for PVG arrivals and, in some cases, people visiting from other cities within China.

This policy has been in place since at least last October when I arrived.

I don't have access to data on the HK flights, but even if they are being let in with less scrutiny than others, I can't imagine this moves the needle a great deal. I might be wrong, though.

HK was reporting ~55k cases/day recently. HK has a population that is 44x less than that of the US. In other words, HK's per capita case rate was equivalent to ~2.4M cases/day in the US -- a milestone that the US has never actually reached. And pretty much all flights from the US were shut down during the big omicron wave in December/January. So if they haven't shut down HK flights, that suggests that something other than keeping SARS-CoV-2 out is motivating this policy.

The policy that people don't have own place but want to stay in Shanghai MUST go to Q hotels for additional 7 days took effect January 24, 2022.

http://m.sh.bendibao.com/news/241986.html?src=sogou

Before that they can stay at any hotel (not Q hotel) and move freely, with additional tests.

This is definitely recent, not October 2021 as you claimed.

The Kingdom treats HK so nicely, even though technically HK is considered "international arrival"

Just compare how China enforces COVID rules for US vs HK. Huge, huge difference. At this point, every pax from the US must pass 4 different PCR/Anti-gen tests on day 1, 5, 6 before they can board the flight.

How many tests HK pax take before flying to PVG?

Well there are definitely differences at least at an ideological level.

• The mainland is trying to do a big show of “saving” Hong Kong. Hence why Liang Wannian is there now and is calling the shots.
• In the mainland’s view, HK is part of China so it’s not so much “international”.
• In the mainland’s view, they don’t care about foreigners. And Chinese people in countries outside of the mainland/HK/Macau/Taiwan are making a mistake being there instead of the safe place that is the mainland. Now HK is unsafe so their citizens should be able to return to the safe place again if they do the right precautions. Unfortunately at some point these precautions failed.

This is a factor some forgot when discussing the recent repatriation saga from Ukraine, or the lack thereof. Plenty of points I won’t discuss here (OMNI-ish), but one complaint about travel cost in the multi-wan (10k) yuan range conveniently omitted the point that going from Europe or North America back to China has always cost many wan yuan for the past many months. No one is really “welcomed” into China and you politically incorrect Chinese should find your way to somewhere you can stay, Poland or Romania or wherever a visa isn’t required.

They are discussing flights diverting from PVG so they can use the hotels for local quarantine cases.

They allow HK flights to continue because they need an excuse to end the zero Covid policy and blaming HK is convenient and acceptable to most people here.

That’s my opinion on these two issues for what it’s worth.

China thinks of Hong Kong as its own. And is "technically" is (I would add "actually").
Where is HK considered an "international arrival?" China wouldn't use such a word. "International" as in "guo wai"?

I'm pretty sure that 99.9% of the people in China think the US is a different country.

This is the best explanation I've seen yet. Thanks!

The reason is simple, they need the Q hotels to quarantine local close contacts. This is exactly the same reason why Australia drastically cut down the number of arrivals every time there was a local outbreak during its Zero-Covid period.

It isn't an issue of hotel rooms, it's the limited number of qualified staff to run the Q hotels. The issue at Huating was partly down to the use of temp staff.

The lack of flight shutdowns is certainly running contrary to their stated objective of Zero-Covid. However, their actions on the ground does not (currently) align with a plan to let it rip.

In any case the peak in HK seems to have passed so whether flights from there are shut down or not is no longer relevant to the current situation in China.

This. Wuhan was only the introductory act. They've managed to hold it at bay but they're losing it now and there will come a point where they can't manage the logistics of lockdown.

You might be right, but I certainly wouldn't bet against them.

The cost (I don't mean monetary) will likely be excessive to contain it, and 'other things' will start breaking down.....IMO.

I hear you, but their containment measures increasingly appear to have no limits. HK arrivals are definitely a chink in the armor though.

A very mature response to the spread of a virus.

I am predicting that the measures will increase in strictness, until such time as it reaches a boiling point, and simply won't be accepted or be enforceable anymore.
At that time the restrictions will ease again, to prevent a "real problem"!
This is all likely going to play out over the next few week & months...

You know, my friend in Guangzhou made an interesting point. The numbers are "fixed". As in, how come Tianhe didn't get locked down when other places did?

Perhaps there weren't any cases in Tianhe?

She lives in Tianhe. She's pretty sure Tianhe wasn't magically spared when there are outbreaks all over.

She also pointed out some other stuff that is pretty funny/loopholes. Like how she isn't vaccinated. And how her dad didn't quarantine when coming back from a trip to another part of China that had an outbreak. Why? Because their hukou is another place, though they have lived in Tianhe for years. At least in their case officials in one district didn't communicate with the other.
She has lots of funny stories like that. I don't know how common her situation is, but I guess some people slip through the cracks.

I don't think omicron is not "containable". I think what is correct is that it is nigh impossible to contain it with current measures. Everybody needs to wear n95 or better masks (or respirators, etc). HEPA purifiers need to be installed everywhere indoors. If you can upgrade the infrastructure I think it can be contained.
Oh, and they should probably figure out who is contagious before they have symptoms. That's a pretty essential aspect as well. But hey, we can measure the oxygen saturation in the bloodstream without actually taking blood, so if someone can figure out a non-invasive way of screening everyone for COVID as well ...

What makes her so sure? In Shanghai at least, lockdowns occur at the neighborhood, compound and building levels. They based on specific positive cases.

[QUOTE=moondog;34073456]As much as she cannot be so sure, you cannot be certain of that either. You rely on information provided by the government about positive cases.
Her point is what is the likelihood that the place everybody goes, the CBD if you will, doesn't have any cases so doesn't need to be locked down? When all around the areas are locked down. Seems awfully far-fetched to say it is a magical COVID-free zone.

Of course I can't be positive there are no positive cases in Tianhe, but based on my experiences up here, the government freaks out about cases whenever they pop up. They aren't secretive about it. They don't play favorites (e.g the JA mayor is the most powerful in Shanghai and the JA Kerry Center is one of the most prestigious buildings in the city).

ETA: It just occurred to be that if Tianhe is sweeping known positive cases under the rug, and there is an outbreak there (these tend to hard to keep secret), heads will surely roll. I'm guessing those responsible for reporting care more about their livelihoods than economic interests or pride.

All these qurantines and travel restrictions have finally did it to me. I have exited China after spending almost entire month of Jan (Started in San Francisco) and better part of CNY in some forms of quarantines, isolation, 17 tests, etc..., Once I got cleared in early Feb, I packed and packed and got my stuff (tangibles and intangibles) out of China. Now back home in the US.

My employer has moved my personnel file to HK, but that is another black hole at the moment. So, at the moment I am roaming between US, Singapore and Australia in the coming months, and waiting to enter HK once the cases are managible.

I have learned a great of deals from many of you in the China forum, and received amazing amount of tips over the years.

I will continue to follow this forum, particulary this thread. You never know I may be back once Covid is no longer impacting China.

Thank you all!