China normalizes traffic with Hong Kong after three years of

restrictions

Checkpoints on the border between the Chinese city of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, which has the status of a special administrative region, started operating on January 8 as usual, according to the Xinhua news agency. The opening of checkpoints was the first step towards lifting restrictions on movement between Hong Kong and the so-called mainland CHINA, introduced in 2020 after the outbreak of the CORONAVIRUS infection covid-19.

 At the first stage , 60,000 Hong Kong residents per day will be able to travel to mainland China . Of these, 50 thousand will be able to use land checkpoints on the border with Shenzhen, and the rest will get "to the mainland" by ferries, planes or via the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge. To qualify for the quota, all travelers leaving Hong Kong (excluding returning home residents of the PRC) must book a trip through a special system.

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The HEAD of the Hong Kong administration, who attended the opening of the checkpoint, said that everything went well, and said that the authorities intend to develop an overall plan for the full resumption of normal travel between Hong Kong and the "mainland".

Over the past day in Hong Kong, according to local authorities, more than 15.3 thousand cases of COVID-19 infection were detected, the cause of which was transmission of the infection within the region, and more than 500 cases when people became infected outside of Hong Kong. In the same day, 72 deaths of those infected with COVID-19 were recorded in Hong Kong.

In mainland China (excluding Hong Kong and Macau), more than 10.6 thousand COVID-19 infections were detected on January 6, three people died.