WASHINGTON: The United States will require negative Covid tests from all air travelers from China, saying Beijing is not sharing enough information about the surge in coronavirus cases there, health officials said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
From January 5, \u201call air passengers two years and older originating from China will be required to get a test no more than two days before their departure from China, Hong Kong and Macau, and show a negative test result to the airlines upon departure,\u201d a federal health official said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe recent rapid increase in Covid-19 transmission in China increases the potential for new variants emerging,\u201d the official told reporters in a phone briefing.<\/p>\n
However, the official said, Beijing has provided only limited data about circulating variants in China to global databases, and testing and reporting on new cases has also diminished.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on this lack of available data, it\u00b4s harder for US public health officials to identify new variants spreading to the United States,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe United States is taking deliberative proactive steps to protect Americans\u00b4 public health, and be on alert for any potential Covid-19 variants emerging,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n
The new requirement will fall into place just after midnight US Eastern Time on January 5, or 0500 GMT.<\/p>\n
The test requirement applies to air passengers regardless of nationality and vaccination status, and includes people traveling to the United States from China via third countries, as well as those traveling through the United States to other countries.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, China late Monday scrapped quarantine for inbound travellers from January 8 onwards, dismantling the last remaining piece of its stringent zero-Covid policy and ending some of the world\u00b4s harshest border restrictions.<\/p>\n
The move was greeted with jubilation by Chinese citizens, who rushed to book international flights, triggering a surge in ticket prices.<\/p>\n
Hospitals and crematoriums across China continue to be overwhelmed by an influx of mostly elderly people.<\/p>\n
AFP reporters saw dozens of mostly elderly Covid patients lying on gurneys in overflowing hospital emergency wards in Tianjin, 140 kilometres (87 miles) southwest of the capital Beijing Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Medical staff are \u201cpretty much all\u201d expected to continue working despite testing positive for the virus, one doctor said.<\/p>\n
Other countries have expressed concerns about the potential for new variants to emerge as China battles the world\u00b4s biggest surge in infections.<\/p>\n
Taiwan, a self-ruled island that China claims as its own, said Wednesday that it would also screen travellers from the mainland for the virus.<\/p>\n
Italy said on Wednesday it was making PCR tests mandatory for visitors from China.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently the development of China\u00b4s epidemic situation is overall predictable and under control,\u201d foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cHyping, smearing and political manipulation with ulterior motives can\u00b4t stand the test of facts,\u201d Wang added, calling Western media reporting on China\u00b4s Covid surge \u201ccompletely biased\u201d.<\/p>\n
All passengers arriving in China have had to undergo mandatory centralised quarantine since March 2020. The period of isolation fell from three weeks to one week in June, and to five days last month.<\/p>\n
The end of that rule in January will also see Covid-19 downgraded to a Class B infectious disease, allowing authorities to adopt looser controls.<\/p>\n
Chinese immigration authorities said Tuesday they would resume issuing passports for tourism purposes from January 8, after years of strict exit controls.<\/p>\n
The winter surge comes ahead of major public holidays next month in which hundreds of millions of people are expected to travel to their hometowns to reunite with relatives.<\/p>\n
Chinese authorities have said the scale of the outbreak is now \u201cimpossible\u201d to track and narrowed the criteria for defining Covid deaths.<\/p>\n
China\u00b4s Center for Disease Prevention and Control reported 5,231 new Covid cases and three deaths nationwide Wednesday \u2014 likely a drastic undercount since people are no longer required to declare infections to authorities.<\/p>\n
Authorities are using data from online surveys, hospital visits, demand for fever medicines and emergency calls to \u201cmake up for shortcomings in (officially) reported figures\u201d, disease control official Yin Wenwu said at a press briefing Tuesday.<\/p>\n
With the country facing shortages of basic medicines, Beijing city authorities plan to distribute the oral Covid drug Paxlovid at local hospitals and community clinics. It remains extremely difficult to obtain for ordinary people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: The United States will require negative Covid tests from all air travelers from China, saying Beijing is not sharing enough information about the surge in coronavirus cases there, health officials said Wednesday. From January 5, \u201call air passengers two years and older originating from China will be required to get a test no more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":111022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111023,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111021\/revisions\/111023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/111022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}