Today (14 February), Mongolian Government has scrapped almost all remaining Covid-19 restrictions, but keeping face mask, hand sanitizing and the one-metre rules. Majority of measures that have been in place for almost three years are now lifted. Mongolia is the one of the continent’s highest uptake of booster vaccines, which has helped keep the number of seriously ill people well below the previous peak.

All levels of educational institutions in Mongolia has resumed in-person classes  starting from today. Now, Mongolia opens its borders fully to foreign travellers. Previously, the Central Asian country reopened its air border to resume international passenger flights on June, 2021 after more than a year of closure because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On same day, Mongolia has downgraded emergency levels related to Covid-19 from orange to yellow. The four levels are represented by a color and lays out detailed rules and guidelines for operations and activities to be carried out by government organizations, individuals and private businesses under each level.

1. Green Level – Guidelines for the green level transmission are issued when the country has gone 28 days straight with zero COVID-19 cases. Operations of public and private organizations and individuals are not suspended, only health preventative guidelines and recommendations are in place.

2. Yellow Level – issued when the coronavirus cases registered in the past 14 days are ‘imported’ from abroad and taken under control or the local cases confirmed in the past two weeks are not directly related to each other in terms of their timing and locations. Under the Yellow Level transmission, complete or partial heightened state of readiness is declared and operations of public and private organizations and individuals are restricted to a certain extent.

3. Orange Level – issued when cluster infections are confirmed and local cases recorded in the past 14 days are related to each other in terms of their timing and locations. Under the Orange Level transmission, complete or partial heightened state of readiness is declared and operations of public and private organizations and individuals are restricted to a certain extent depending on the situation.

4. Red Level – issued when large-scale community infections of COVID-19 are recorded, positive coronavirus cases recorded in the past 14 days are found to have been virally transmitted among general population or the cluster source of 25 percent of newly confirmed cases cannot be identified or mortality rate per 10,000 people is higher than 0.1. Under the Red Level transmission, all-out readiness regime is issued in full or partial manners and operations of public and private organizations and individuals are restricted and special measures for lockdown and quarantine are implemented.

The country has been one of the most cautious countries on the risks of COVID-19, putting in place toughest restrictions. The country of three million shut its borders with China on 27 January 2020 and closed all schools, kindergartens and public gatherings as preventive measures against the COVID-19 outbreak.