Beijing is gradually opening up to the world after spending over five months in shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The capital city&rsquos international airport resumed direct international flights, starting Thursday this week, from a limited number of countries considered at low risk of coronavirus infection. The airports had remained closed since March due to the coronavirus spread and lately, China was facing occasional resurgences of the virus spread in some cities.
The first direct international flight to resume its service flew in from Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Flights connecting Thailand, Cambodia, and Pakistan in Asia, as well as Greece, Denmark, Austria, and Sweden in Europe, and Canada in North America (all nations with relatively small numbers of imported cases) have been resumed.
All passengers on these flights are required to produce a negative coronavirus test before boarding.
According to the city&rsquos customs department, all imported frozen foods, along with other goods arriving from other countries, would be tested upon arrival too.
The number of passengers will be limited to roughly 500 per day during the initial trial period and an additional test on arrival will be done, followed by two weeks of quarantine.
Flights are being resumed as China has gone weeks without new cases of local infection. Beijing&rsquos last local outbreak was in July.
Beginning in March, Beijing had redirected all its international flights to a dozen other cities where passengers were tested and processed before being allowed to travel on to the Chinese capital.