China Covid: New Year's excitement sees the possibility of progress beyond virus
It's strange.
A PCR test is still required before travelling, and arriving travellers must fill out a health declaration form, which is accessible via phone apps. This creates a temporary QR code. You scan the code when you enter the airport and then simply walk out and into China after clearing immigration.
I had to wait an hour as a journalist for special permission to enter. During that time, another waiting reporter and I had a lengthy conversation with one of the immigration officers.
It was the first day they weren't required to wear "da bai" (large white) protective gear over their uniforms, face shields, or shoe covers. Was it a sigh of relief?
"Yeah, it wasn't that horrible," he admitted.
The Chinese New Year is quickly approaching, but this officer has stated that he would not be returning to his hometown to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit. He predicted that the immigration police will be swamped with work in the following weeks to ensure that the new travel procedures were in place and operational.
Because most zero-Covid travel restrictions were lifted before the Spring Festival, many people who had been unable to visit friends and family in China are scrambling to get plane and train tickets in time.
Then there are the Chinese people who have been unable to travel abroad for years and are now making arrangements to do so. Most experts believe that overseas tourists will be permitted back very soon.
The rate of change in China's Covid approach has been astounding.
Protests over China's zero-Covid policy, which began late last year, appear to have sparked this sudden shift.
Discontent had been building for a long time, but when demonstrators began publicly chanting that leader Xi Jinping should quit and the Communist Party relinquish control, it was too much for even this country's all-powerful government to tolerate.
Long lines form outside offices that issue passports and travel permits to Hong Kong.
Covid spread throughout the Chinese populace following the conclusion of mass testing, city-wide lockdowns, and centralised quarantine.
Big metropolis hospitals were quickly overwhelmed. Images on social media show hospital halls crammed with elderly people on oxygen.
The exact number of deaths is unknown. China's health officials announced that deaths from other reasons would not be included in the Covid figures, even if coronavirus indirectly caused a patient's death by precipitating other health problems.
As a result, the official death toll is mocked by the Chinese people.
One woman told the BBC about her mother-in-death. law's Her account presents a picture of a burial system under tremendous strain, implying that the Covid death toll is significant.
Initially, she added, it was impossible to arrange an ambulance to take her mother-in-law to the hospital. After she died, her body was put on the floor in a room filled with corpses.
She claimed to have heard that Beijing had temporarily converted a cold storage facility to store bodies.
It took her family more than a week to acquire a funeral service slot at the cremation, and when we spoke with her, they were still waiting for the cemetery to provide them a site to place the urn carrying her mother-in-ashes. law's
Hospitals in Shanghai, for example, have struggled to accommodate patients.
It is difficult to express China's current contradictory mood.
There are some who have lost loved ones or who have had a poor Covid experience, but there is also much excitement since the country is reopening. According to government officials, several provinces and cities have reached their peak of illness.
The New Year's Eve mass migration has already begun. People are dragging their bags toward the railway stations, carrying gifts for their relatives. Tens of millions of people have already travelled, with an estimated two billion more on the way.
A 53-year-old woman working in a little shop selling nuts in Beijing's Jianguomen area told us she hadn't returned home for the new year since the Covid problem began.
"I can't wait to get back home. I've been working extremely hard all year "She stated. "I'd like to visit my elderly parents. My children are also present. They're all waiting for my return. We can all get together for a family reunion and ring in the new year together!"
She expresses regret for being away from home for so long. Her 84-year-old father and 77-year-old mother both contracted the illness and recovered, as did she. So she told them they may resume their normal lives.
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A few doors down is a noodle restaurant, where a couple in their 50s is on their lunch break. Their supervisor has yet to tell them whether they can take time off to visit their hometown in eastern Anhui province.
They hadn't been back in three years. "We lost a lot of money during the Covid crisis, but our rent hasn't changed. So we continue to work."
Do they not want to return home this year?
"Of course, we'd like to, but we don't have the funds," they agree. The woman reveals that their restaurant's forced closure for dine-in services for months on end cost them a lot of money.
People predict that things will improve in the Year of the Rabbit.
Have their parents, aged in their 80s and 90s, caught Covid?
"They must have gotten it," says the man. "There were no test kits in our village, but they were feeling ill, had a fever, and coughed a lot. I took some medicine and got better."
A mother with her six-year-old son tells us outside the restaurant that they will not be leaving Beijing anytime soon. Despite having received Covid, they are concerned about contracting it again in a second wave of illnesses.
A dad and his youngster further down the road have a very different attitude.
They're on vacation in Beijing. They haven't captured Covid yet, but they're not concerned. According to the father, his grandparents have already recovered from the virus in their hometown of Zhengzhou, in central Henan province, and will be returning shortly for the Spring Festival.
Images of rabbits are popping up all over the place. They appear to symbolise the positivity that is currently sweeping the country.
It's been a difficult few years in China, but people are suggesting that things will be a lot better during the Year of the Rabbit.
And who can blame them for hoping for brighter days ahead?
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