Would it be Safe to Visit China AFTER Chinese New Year 2023?

After reading What Does a Re-Opened China (Without Quarantine) Mean for Foreign Business?, a client asked if it would be safe to fly to China after CNY, in February.

Understandably, following the news that China’s borders will be opened to visitors with no quarantine requirements from January 8th, many importers with Chinese suppliers are eager to visit them for the first time in around 3 years in many cases. Chinese New Year falls on Jan 22, so a good time to visit will be in February when factories are back at work.

BUT…is it even safe to visit China given that they’re in the grip of a rather serious Covid epidemic? Let’s unpack this.

Note: We’ll keep updating this post as and when we see relevant news or can confirm changes based on our China-based staff’s accounts.

Will it be safe to visit China in February 2023?

At this point, yes, it seems to be OK, with a caveat:

• Chances are, the current (first) wave will already have gone through nearly the entire population, based on anecdotal evidence suggesting that most of the population has been infected over the past 4 weeks (here’s a BBC article about cases and deaths).
• At CNY, people are going to mix together geographically and that might extend the first wave. But it seems it’s a matter of a few days (or a week) of incubation and a few days of sickness, so by mid-February, the big chunk of it should be gone.
• In any case, there is a downside — you have to assume the hospitals are overwhelmed and you can’t get any medical treatment. That might be a lingering source of risk in China throughout 2023, as the 2nd wave, the 3rd wave, etc. Especially if you’re in a higher-risk category due to certain health conditions.
• Bring some medicine for treating the symptoms (in case you get infected), as they are in very short supply in China.
• Regular travel insurance will usually cover hospital treatment, medication, etc, in China, therefore look into purchasing a policy for your visit here.

Two key issues to keep an eye on

There are 2 issues that we can’t provide a firm answer to right now:

• Will new variant(s) appear?
  That could be a game changer if it’s deadlier than omicron. There are concerns that the large number of infections could lead to new Covid variants emerging in China, but this doesn’t seem to be the case at the moment.
• When will a second wave come up?
  Will it be as brutal as the first one? Will it put many people to bed again? If we look back to 2020 in the West, we saw waves of Covid hit with some time between them…it seems reasonable to suggest that China’s epidemic may follow suit and behave in the same way. If it occurs in summer, this would perhaps be less severe than during winter like now when people are more likely to be indoors in less well-ventilated environments.

Update Jan 3rd

• Medicines like paracetamol have begun to be restocked and it’s now easier to purchase them from pharmacies in China.
• Some of the hospitals in Shenzhen, where Sofeast’s main office is based, are not that busy now. For example, the Far East hospital in Luohu which is also reasonably priced for visitors without insurance.
  However, we don’t know if they still test on arrival. If they do, what happens if you test positive on arrival i.e. where will you be isolated? This is a grey area.
• Shenzhen in particular doesn’t have a particularly severe amount of cases any longer, so by February, it’s probably going to have eased further.

Let us know if you have any questions. We’re here to help.