An employee works at a factory of SMC Corporation, amid Covid-19, during an organised media tour, in Beijing, on Jan 10.as "reasonable", while Chinese tourists decried Seoul's "insulting" treatment on social media.
In a first, China's health authorities – which have been reporting five or fewer deaths a day over the past month, numbers that are inconsistent with the long queues seen at funeral homes – did not report Covid fatalities data on Tuesday. Among them, South Korea and Japan have also limited flights and require tests on arrival, with passengers showing up as positive being sent to quarantine. In South Korea, quarantine is at the traveller's own cost.
Videos circulating online showed special lanes coordinated by soldiers in uniform for arrivals from China at the airport, with travellers given yellow lanyards with QR codes for processing test results.One user of China's Twitter-like Weibo said singling out Chinese travellers was "insulting" and akin to "people treated as criminals and paraded on the streets."
Repeated lockdowns in China over the last year have hammered the world's second-largest economy. The World Bank said on Tuesday China's growth in 2022 slumped to 2.7 per cent, its second-slowest pace since the mid-1970s after 2020. Merck has a deal for China's Sinopharm to import and distribute the medication. The Chinese firm said the drug could be ready for sale before the Lunar New Year, according to local media.Scalpers charge as much as 50,000 yuan for a box of Paxlovid, more than 20 times its original price, Chinese media said.