Flight passengers from China to the US must have a negative Covid test
As nations hastened to apply restrictions in reaction to a spike in cases in the country following the abrupt suspension of Beijing’s zero-Covid containment policy, the US announced it would need negative Covid-19 tests for flying travellers travelling from China.
On Wednesday, the U.S. government took action in response to a spike in cases after Italy declared it would screen all plane travellers arriving from China for the virus.
According to the CDC, beginning on January 5th, anybody flying in from China, Hong Kong, or Macau would be required to show documentation of a negative Covid test or recovery from a past illness. Connecting travellers and those arriving in the US from a third country are likewise subject to the regulations.
Because of “the lack of adequate and transparent epidemiological and viral genomic sequence data being reported from” Beijing, the CDC is taking these steps to “limit the spread” of the virus in the United States in the wake of the outbreak in China. The Chinese government has stopped providing daily case totals and has restricted the criteria for what constitutes an official Covid case or death.
Expecting a swarm of tourists from China now that President Xi Jinping’s government has abandoned the remaining zero-Covid regulations, Japan, India, and Taiwan have all instituted testing procedures for new arrivals from the People’s Republic. Starting on Friday, just four airports in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya will be able to receive visitors from China and Macau. On the same day, South Korea is rumoured to announce new testing restrictions.