The most recent data from China suggests that their admirable air travel recovery has skidded of late. October was the recent high point and was approaching 2019 levels. But November and December saw traffic dropoff.
Note the near disappearance of international traffic from the chart on the top left. The chart on the lower left showed tremendous recovery almost immediately after February – China ran at least one month ahead on the pandemic. Perhaps this rapid recovery in China was why the rest of the world was slow to react?
If China was managing the Covid problem so well, other countries may have felt there was no need to overreact. Little did we know!
China has been aggressively helping to distribute its vaccines. China’s CDC wants to open travel between the US and China by August or September. The proposal from chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention Wu Zunyou is as follows:
- China and the US should mutually recognize vaccinations in the other country and limit free travel to only those who have been vaccinated.
- Free travel should then be given to official and business travel and overseas study and third, all travel types should be covered.
