China announced that it will reduce COVID-19 quarantine period for seafarers transferring from international-going vessels to domestic-deployed vessels when arriving at domestic ports.
Namely, China’s Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Health Commission, General Administration of Customs and National Immigration Administration, collaborated to optimize quarantine policies for crew onboard foreign-going vessels which will be deployed on domestic routes later.
More specifically, at the port of entry, all crew members on board the vessel servying for international trading routes will have to undergo a five-day quarantine, before berthing at domestic ports.
This will be in addition to three days of quarantine after moving to domestic vessel, instead of seven days quarantine before entering the nation plus three days health monitoring.
Furthermore, the COVID-19 test times that the seafarers needed to do have also changed, from five tests in seven days to four times in five days after the vessel arrived at the port of entry.
When the vessel completed route adjustment from abroad to domestic, the ship owner is responsible to arrange two COVID-19 tests for the crew member at the first and the third day during the three-day health monitoring period.
However, seafarers should be aware that China continues to maintain a strict COVID-19 zero policy unlike most other countries that have dropped most or all COVID-19 related restrictions.
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