China Briefing | Don’t travel around zero-Covid China – my family’s Hainan holiday nightmare shows why

Name: 80,000 tourists trapped in ‘China’s Hawaii’ in latest Covid-19 outbreak
Uploaded: 2022-08-13T01:00:25.000Z
Duration: 1 min 46 s
Description: 80,000 tourists trapped in ‘China’s Hawaii’ in latest Covid-19 outbreak

Despite each of us testing negative for Covid-19 more than a dozen times, my family and I remain stranded on the island province amid its outbreak

We had been looking forward to a week-long beach holiday, but now have no way of knowing when – or how – we will be able to return home

Reading Time:4 minutes

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A medical worker takes a swab sample for Covid-19 testing from a person in Sanya, Hainan province, on Thursday. Photo: Xinhua

Wang Xiangwei

Published: 9:00am, 13 Aug 2022

On the last day of July, my family and I flew to Hainan – widely billed as “China’s Hawaii” – for our first holiday outside Beijing in more than two-and-a-half years.

Any concerns we might have had about China’s tight pandemic control measures spoiling our fun were dispelled by the fact that at the time of our flight, the tropical island province was Covid-free – and had, in fact, just finished hosting a major consumer products expo that reportedly attracted thousands of people from across the country.

Our family of three was also encouraged by the Chinese government’s recent easing of travel restrictions and tweaking of its nationwide tracking system – accessed via mobile phones – to record seven days of travel history instead of the previous 14.

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80,000 tourists trapped in ‘China’s Hawaii’ in latest Covid-19 outbreak

Alas, how wrong we were. Our dream holiday rapidly turned into a travel nightmare soon after Sanya reported its first case on August 1. Since then, we have only grown more apprehensive and frustrated – thanks in no small part to the chaos and confusion caused by local officials, who seemed caught off guard by the outbreak.

The Covid suppression policies have constantly changed from one day to the next and often contradict one another, as China’s omnipresent and arbitrary network of surveillance using big data and artificial intelligence has only added to our woes.

Here is a cautionary tale for anyone thinking of travelling on the Chinese mainland while its Covid control measures remain in place.

To be fair, the first three days of what was supposed to be a one-week beach holiday in the five-star Westin resort was as relaxing and fun as one would expect of a tropical paradise. The hotel in Lingshui county – about 65km north of Sanya and 197km south of the island’s capital, Haikou – has its own pristine beach in what’s known as Clear Water Bay.

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