In January 2023, China will end its Covid quarantine for travellers, reopening its borders to those with work and study visas or seeking to visit family. The Chinese authorities announced this on Monday, allowing Chinese citizens to travel overseas more easily.

But reports suggest that the lifting of restrictions has caused Covid to spread rapidly. Hospitals in China are overwhelmed, and elderly people are dying. The true extent of the pandemic is unknown as officials have stopped releasing Covid data. Beijing reported around 4,000 new Covid infections and a few deaths last week. On Sunday, it said it would no longer publish case numbers. Airfinity, a British health data firm, estimated that China was experiencing more than a million infections and 5,000 deaths daily.

China is the last major economy to move to “living with Covid” after three years of lockdowns, closed borders and mandatory quarantine.