Recommendations to maximize impact of ’20 measures’ regarding Covid-control

The German Chamber of Commerce in China welcomes the release of the ’20 measures’. (Officially: ‘Notice on Further Optimizing the Prevention and Control Measures of the COVID-19 in a Scientific and Precise Manner). We formulated six recommendations to give the ’20 measures’ more impact The recommendations were shared with the Ministry of Commerce and the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade on Thursday, November 24.

Please read find a summary of the 30 measures below, the original document is available for download in English in Chinese:

1. Beijing Health Kit Pop-up Windows: German businesses need the government of Beijing to provide clear details on the process and requirements of the green code assignment and to provide contact information of the relevant departments, so that the problem of pop-up windows can be solved in a timely manner, thereby facilitating business travels and staff communication.
2. Inbound quarantine hotels: we wish for the government to arrange quarantine hotels located at an acceptable distance from the airport and to make sure that conditions in these hotels are comparable. Another option would be to provide hotels of different standards and price levels such as in the case of Shenzhen. This would allow passengers to independently choose appropriate quarantine hotels.
3. Quarantine time and conditions for inbound travelers: In the 20 measures, the quarantine period was shortened from "7 days centralized quarantine + 3 days home health monitoring" to "5 days centralized quarantine + 3 days home isolation". However, many resident communities require inbound travelers to complete an additional 3 days of home quarantine in the city of entry before returning to their city of residence. Therefore, the required "5+3" quarantine time in most of the cases means "8+0".
4. Universal vaccination: On Nov. 2, German Chancellor Scholz visited China and met with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang. At the press conference after the meeting, Chancellor Scholz said that the BioNTech mRNA vaccine would be provided to foreign nationals in China. We have been informed that the Chinese government is working on a program to accelerate the vaccination campaign against the new coronavirus. We recommend for the approval and vaccination process to move forward as soon as possible.
5. Business activities under closed-loop management: Some local governments have not yet started to implement the policy as of now. Also, the scope of implementation does not define ‘important business personnel’. Companies are not sure whether they are eligible for the closed-loop management system without quarantine requirements. Therefore, we advocate for the government to provide guidance and policy interpretation for this purpose.
6. “Second degree” close contacts classification: we have received many requests from German employees who said that some primary and secondary schools/international schools in their cities were closed randomly, even though no cases were found during daily routine testing. As a result, German employees had to take time off to take care of their children at home, thereby delaying their work progress. For this reason, we recommend applying the premise of precise control mentioned in the 20 measures for minimizing the impact on people.

Please see the detailed recommendations hier