January 8 will be remembered as the day that mainland China reopened its borders. Thousands of families have reunited with their relatives and loved ones. This also allowed the long-awaited tourists to safely access the world’s populous country after three years of quarantine.

In March 2020, families and businesses were placed under a heavy burden after China was ring-fenced from the rest of the world, along with the special administrative regions: of Hong Kong and Macau. Though Taiwan is a country that China has governed since 1949, its borders were opened in October 2022 after scrapping its COVID rules, according to Al Jazeera.

In Hong Kong, 400,000 people are expected to travel into mainland China in the coming weeks with long queues for flights into cities including Beijing and Xiamen, and two billion trips are expected to be made this Chinese New Year, double the number that traveled last year.

Even though this miracle is happening, some are concerned that opening the borders would result in more outbreaks of COVID-19. According to BBC, a bus driver said they are worried they might get the virus from incoming travelers and want their companies to provide them with more protection.

In the past years, China had one of the world’s strictest COVID policies, resulting in numerous lockdowns and frequent testing. That alone has had a significant impact on the country’s economy. These would also trigger protests across the country, with one of them from the infamous fire that killed ten people in the high-rise region of Xinjiang.

Reports of hospitals and crematoriums being overwhelmed after the country abandoned the important elements of the COVID-Zero policy and stopped their cases from being published. Only two deaths were reported on January 7.