A foreigner submits a health declaration at an airport in Shanghai. Photo: cnsphoto

Inbound travelers to Shanghai, no matter whether vaccinated or not, are all required to undergo quarantine for a number of days and receive COVID-19 nucleic acid tests, a source at Shanghai's health authority told the Global Times on Wednesday.

The source responded to an article published by the South China Morning Post on Tuesday, which quoted the Spanish consulate in Shanghai as saying some foreign citizens who have been inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines "are being put in hospital…for three or four days upon arrival in China."

The source said that as far as he knows, Shanghai's current entry policy on inbound visitors that are vaccinated "is the same" as those who have not been vaccinated.

"Although I'm not very clear about the policy details, I've never heard that one can be free from nucleic acid tests after being vaccinated," the source told the Global Times.

To prevent potential import and transmission of the virus, at present Shanghai treats foreign and Chinese inbound visitors equally, no matter whether they have been inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines or not, the Global Times found.

According to the city's latest COVID-19 prevention and control regulations, starting from May 16, all arrivals from overseas must undergo a 14-day quarantine for observation, and then a seven-day health monitoring at a community that includes temperature measuring twice a day, showed a notice published on the website of the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission on May 14.

Each arrival should receive at least six nucleic acid tests during quarantine and community health monitoring after entering Shanghai, the notice said.

Global Times