CHINA EASES SOME COVID RULES EVEN AS CASES TOP 10K

BEIJING: China’s health body on Friday reduced the number of days inbound travellers have to quarantine from 10 to eight days and scrapped a penalty for international airlines bringing in virus cases into the country as it eased some of its strict rules to restrict the spread of Covid-19.

The National Health Council announced a shortened quarantine period for international arrivals and close contacts of confirmed cases. Health officials are also no longer required to report secondary close contacts, the modified regulations said.

It also scrapped the “circuit breaker” system under which airlines were temporarily suspended from flying specific routes into China for one to two weeks, depending on how many Covid-positive passengers were on the flight.

The NHC on Friday reported 10,535 new domestically transmitted cases for Thursday, the highest number of infections reported in China since April 29.