The United States is considering restrictions on travelers from China
Washington is considering the possibility of imposing new restrictions on entry to American territory for travelers from China.
Infections have soared across China. Here, a woman in Beijing on December 26th.
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The United States is considering imposing entry restrictions on travelers from China, where authorities have abruptly eased their measures to combat Covid-19, US officials said Tuesday.
Infections soared across China as key pillars of the country’s “zero Covid” policy practiced since early 2020 were dismantled within weeks, prompting US officials to worry about the risk of new variants of the virus emerging. “The international community is increasingly concerned about the current COVID-19 outbreaks in China and the lack of transparent data, including viral genome sequence data, reported from the PRC,” US officials said, on condition of anonymity, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
Beijing has acknowledged that it is “impossible” to follow the evolution of the epidemic and has even stopped publishing the daily data on the health situation since Sunday. The official figures were increasingly criticized as their underestimation of infection cases and deaths had become flagrant. But it’s the lack of genomic data that’s causing the greatest concern overseas, making it “increasingly difficult for public health officials to ensure they’ll be able to identify any potential new variables and take early action to reduce the spread,” US officials . She said.
A worrying Chinese situation
The United States is “following scientific data and the advice of public health experts, consulting partners, and considering taking similar actions … to protect the American people,” they added, citing concerns expressed by the ‘World Health Organization (WHO) as well as the measures taken by Japan, India and Malaysia.
Japan will thus reintroduce mandatory PCR tests for travelers from mainland China from Friday.
China’s easing of anti-Covid measures ends mass testing, lockdowns and lengthy quarantines that have disrupted supply chains and disrupted trade relations with the rest of the world. China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that countries should maintain “scientific and appropriate” disease controls that “should not affect normal human exchanges.”
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