Exciting times! :cool:

Someone in China still using paper money? They must have thought moondog is a tourist :D

The main reason I go to ATMs is to move money from one bank account to another. The cash, aside from whatever I decide to tip the gaurd(s), doesn't actually leave the ATM booth, but I do physically hold it for about thirty seconds.

There's an APP for that! ;)

IME banks and banking apps often like to know the name of the recipient, and Chinese banks can be really anal on the syntax front. But, I never get asked for my name by machines when they have my cards.

GREAT news: expect COVID cases to dramatically drop over the next few days in Beijing! ;)






Reason:
The place where I test close to work had a 1 hour 10 minute line last week - today at the same time there was no line at all. Not a single person. Many people are not testing anymore! Oof!

I made a similar observation towards the beginning of the big lockdown when cases were sky rocketing. Yeah, when you test twenty million people for the first time, you're going to get a spike in positives.

Interesting!
Although I think what we're seeing here isn't exactly that. There had been plenty of testing going on beforehand. There wasn't a sudden increase in testing (well, there was to an extent), but this is different: this is people not wanting to test anymore, and being able to push past security guards to get into whatever place, without showing their green test result. This is quite different to anything I've ever seen before. There is a significant fear of testing positive and ending up in a white container.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f3dffdbfb5.jpg
:D:D:D

I have been hoping to visit China for business reasons at end of year/ealry January, but now needs to delay the trip due to current development.

I'll be visiting China in a few days, without any requirements. Not all parts of the country are still closed ;)

I've been to China exactly THREE times since January of 2020.
Take a wild guess as to when those 3 times were, exactly....hint: you will almost certainly guess this with 100% accuracy.
:rolleyes:

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0bae3442a4.png

I think I've identified the source of China's COVID woes. It was you all along!

:D;)
Warning to everyone: I'll post in here when I'll go to China next time....please AVOID similar travel dates, if you know what's good for you! :tu:

Could you let us know where you're currently located? Just so we can be safe :D

Sure thing: Beijing! I'll let you know when it's safe again...i.e. when I left! :)

Not doing this in every thread with antivaxxers. The vaccine is overwhelmingly safe, much safer than getting COVID for all age groups, and reduces deaths by many, many-fold. there is virtually no scenario in which it's a better idea to NOT get vaccinated, unless your doctor gives that specific advice. The entire population being vaccinated is by far the most effective and safest way to avoid hospitals filling up with COVID patients and deaths. Period.

Keep the antivaxxer nonsense to elsewhere and let's keep this about China re-opening, please.

Happy to have this post and the post before me deleted by the Mods, but couldn't let it go unanswered.

I saw a segment on CNN with Lowy Institute's Richard McGregor. Here's his six predictions on what considerations Xi and China's leadership has on dropping Covid Zero:

1. They do not want to risk dropping Covid Zero in winter
2. They want to wait for the two sessions in March 2023 to make any changes
3. They want to get the elderly vaccination rate up and minimise the butcher's bill
4. They want time to get better vaccines in place (indigenous vaccines are not effective against Omicron)
5. But they face difficulty (like Australia, before Delta) - if Covid Zero works, why get vaccinated?
6. In the meantime dissatisfaction with the policy (distinct from dissatisfaction with the regime) will continue to take place.

All we’ve seen from this entire 2300+ post thread is that all predictions so far have been garbage

What restrictions on transit points still exist? Isn't the latest policy simply a 48-hour negative PCR test from any testing venue that the local PRC consulate approves of? I haven't bothered to figure out how they calculate the 48 hours yet.

In terms of "more airlines allowed", I'm guessing that giving existing back more of their previous frequencies will take precedence.

If your originating flight is from outside of China, you are not allowed to transit in China or in Macau. You can transit in Hong Kong to another location BUT you cannot transit from Hong Kong to mainland China.

No, nothing has changed, and most rumors went nowhere.

-of course you can't transit in China because quarantine happens at the point of entry
-Macau is similar. If you q for seven days there, you are effectively already in China
-in the case of HK, you need to wait until day 3 before you can take the in-airport PCR test
I'm pretty sure the OP wasn't asking about these cases though.

Yeah, transiting in other countries is now pretty easy, with less requirements for Covid tests and HDC codes.
Also, there's several new routes being announced (Hainan and Air China).
There's definitely some positive developments for getting to China.

Does anyone know why UA has zeroed out Y between Dec 4 and 30?

In which direction?

Edit: okay, see it now: SFO ---> PVG is zeroed out. No idea why.
PVG ---> SFO is still showing up.

I take back my statement, things are changing.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...uverify%20wall

There is some speculation here whether that is actually true though. At least it may not be quite as 'easy' to home quarantine as this article makes it sound like.
I was searching this exact info a couple of days ago, and the MAIN article (pre-dating the Bloomberg one mentioned above) that popped up in search engines was from globaltimes.cn: BUT, the link was already dead within an hour of posting, so I never saw the full article. Only managed to grab this snippet before the search engine's cache was purged. The notice mentioned below is rumored to have been fake and photoshopped!!!

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...1164be21de.jpg

They put out good sounding news for the foreign press. Watch the stocks pop in HK and then sell off their profits whilst they backtrack on everything they say on the ground. It's happened too many times now to be a coincidence.

Oh ye of little faith.

Actually I share your lack of faith at the moment. Hard to tell which way things are headed. Once they get protestors off the street I would not be at all suprised to see policies reworded to sound better but many cities reverting to their prior practices.

Was it Zhengzhou today that reiterated its full commitment to a complete eradication of covid so they would not be changing any quaranting or testing rules?

I dunno...
Something is different this time. There's an eerie atmosphere floating around, and unusual, uncommon behavior from the people.

I've seen the moniker of "most important moment in Chinese history since 1989" a few times now.

Are you talking about the Covid rules? I think it’s the same ambiguous poop show it’s been for the last few years. If you’re talking about the protests, they’ve already pretty much ended in Shanghai at least. Nothing more is going to come of them IMHO.

I agree with your last two sentences. You and I have both seen similar games countless times.

I am talking about everything; the mood of the people, the unease that's lingering in the air, the uncertainty, the Covid restrictions; all of it.
This is not the same as before. This all feels like completely new territory, IMO.

Added: they just removed all testing stations here in Beijing (except some in the apartment complexes), and no more 'recent test result' needed for subways, buses, and malls from Monday onward.
Not sure how this is all going to work out, or play out.....but dang!!!!

In Beijing - if you have COVID - they no longer drag you off to centralized quarantine - isolate at home is the message now. I got a message from my community to this effect and also confirmed by a few friends who tested positive last week. The virus is spreading like wildfire and there's a very small likelihood that they will do a full lockdown, so things may open up faster than we expect...

I also noticed that Shanghai (and Beijing?) subways will no longer require QR codes. If true, I'd expect to see fast implementation.

Actually most major cities no longer require health code checks for riding public transport as of Friday. Looks like COVID zero is still in place in theory, but the only way they can implement it is a strict lockdown in BJ and other cities, which I doubt they want to do. Looks like this is the beginning of the re-opening.

Isn't the main driver for opening public transit that it makes charging money for tests less contentious? Regardless, I'm hard pressed to think of a more conducive environment to spreading germs than a packed subway car.

Just lets not kid ourselves though. This is going get wild, REAL fast.