Bearing in mind that there are regional variances, certain requirements (e.g. medical, criminal background, authenticated diplomas) only need to be completed once, regardless of continuity (within reason). Our company uses an agency to help process work permits and residence permits, and renewals are really easy; they email us a bunch of pre-filled documents, we sign/chop them, and go to entry/exit office once or twice. For people that have lapsed RPs, the agency charges an extra Y1000, and we have to create new documents. I suppose it's not that much extra work in the grand scheme, but is definitely something I try to avoid.

narvik You might be able to complete 90% of the process before you set foot in China, and get a single entry visa at the same time that you could use immediately.

Getting OT now, but:

Cheers.
The main issue (as I am told) is the white Police registration, which of course shows that I haven't been in China for months now. I am on a yearly Residents Permit, and we are in the process now of renewing my Work Permit.

United is already operating cargo flights to most of its Asia destinations (shown in blue), and hope they will the first ones to get passenger flight consideration once the travel restrictions on Americans are lifted.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c98883a762.png

UA_Flyer - Nice map. Like others, I am eagerly awaiting the time that I can again fly UA SFO-TPE. :)

Apologies to all for continuing this tangent; I would normally post in the China forum visa thread with a link, but it's dead now, and not many FTers are interested in RPs. Having gotten that out of the way, 5 year RPs are now pretty much standard as long as you have two continuous 1 year RPs when applying. I can certainly see the PSB registration as a bit of a pickle in your case, but there are ways to pull it off without an in person visit from you. Snags like this are one of the most compelling reasons to use an agent.

And, of course, the USA won't allow non-citizens or Permanent Residents into the USA either. It's unlikely that other countries will rush to open their borders to US citizens when the US won't open its borders to their citizens.

And, absent that changing, there are very few people who are permitted to travel to or from the USA - those who have dual nationality and those who have citizenship of one country and residence in the other. That subset doesn't fill many planes.

And, once again, incompetent CDC bureaucrats are to blame. See this from the Washington Post:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/co...ts/ar-BB12Q90W

In addition, if this report out of France is to be believed, then the whole shutdown and testing program will have accomplished nothing:

https://www.france24.com/en/20200417...y-warn-experts

Without sustained immunity after infection, we are fighting a futile battle and doing nothing to help the herd immunity.

My flights to Japan at the end of May are still on schedule. We'll see what happens.

Looks like Emirates is planning to do blood tests at the gate and giving passengers Corona-negative certificates. If this type of testing protocol can be adopted by airlines, and is accurate, what stops all int'l flights from resuming (assuming there is demand of course).

I'd get on a flight if everyone has been tested before boarding...

I could see quarantines being removed immediately as soon as a viable departure gate testing protocol is in place.

I was not familiar with this plan, but google found a news story: https://www.usnews.com/news/world-re...before-flights

The story says,
Hard to see how that enables travel as it was done previously without still having risk of spread.

Pretty big assumption there at the end....

I'd get on a flight now, if anybody would let me, but there's absolutely no way I'd get on a flight if I were required to give blood to do it.

Thankfully, such a procedure is not now, and never will be, viable. If you want to have a fever scan, fine; that's noninvasive.

You're dramatizing something that's not dramatic. Million of Americans self-administer this type of test every single day. Watch this video starting at 25 seconds and see if you would do this to board a plane?

I would not.

Any further reply is going to veer sharply into OMNI territory. Suffice it to say that UA has made no such announcement, nor do I suspect that they would.

I think you're in the minority. Abbott Labs is the worldwide leader in this type of strip testing. If they can release something this simple to test for Covid, I think the airlines would quickly mandate it in an effort to restart their business.

I respect some, like you, may opt-out but enough people would be happy to take the test and take comfort knowing the rest of the plane has taken it as well.

OK, one final reply, that I think is still somewhat tangentially on-topic: that's not what it's testing for. I have absolutely no idea what EK would plan to do with these test results, which is why I don't think it will ever happen, nor do I think UA would follow suit.

You can't run an antibody detection test to determine if someone is contagious, because the antibodies will be present in the bloodstream for a long time after exposure -- hopefully, forever. That's the entire point of a vaccine. The purpose of this test would be to try to show that someone is immune, with a positive test, similar to a test to prove measles immunity by antibody levels in the blood. The difference is that it should be fairly obvious if somebody currently has measles, but it's a lot less obvious if somebody currently has COVID. So, you get a positive test, and then...?

I already cancelled my flights around the same time. Are you a resident, or are you hoping the travel ban is removed? We'll know soon if the 14 day quarantine requirement is being extended since that is set to expire end of April.