The United States said it would require negative Covid-19 tests for air passengers arriving from China as countries rushed to impose restrictions after the abrupt end of Beijing’s zero-Covid lockdown policy led to an increase in cases.
Washington’s decision on Wednesday came just hours after Italy announced it would test all air passengers arriving from China for the virusbecoming the first Western country to establish new rules following the jump in infections.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that starting Jan. 5, travelers boarding flights to the United States from China, Hong Kong and Macao would need a negative Covid-19 test or proof that they had recovered from a previous infection. The requirements also apply to passengers arriving in the United States via a third country and those connecting to other destinations via the United States.
The new measures are aimed at “slowing the spread” of the virus in the United States following the outbreak in China and are being implemented due to “the lack of adequate and transparent data on viral epidemiological and genomic sequences reported by” Beijing, a said the CDC. .. in a statement.
The Chinese Embassy in the United States did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Orazio Schillaci, Italy’s health minister, said on Wednesday that the new restrictions imposed by Rome were “essential to ensure the surveillance and detection of possible variants of the virus in order to protect the Italian population”.
Speaking after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday evening, Schillaci urged the EU to impose a bloc-wide testing requirement and said Italy had written to the European Commission asking for one.
“Many Chinese passengers come to Italy from Schengen countries,” he said, referring to the bloc’s free travel zone. “It is obvious and important to involve European countries in the initiative.”
Italy’s decision to require testing of all passengers arriving from China follows the detection of high rates of Covid infections among passengers on two post-Christmas flights that landed at Milan Malpensa Airport from China.
On one flight with 92 passengers, 38% tested positive, while on a second flight with 120 passengers, 52% tested positive, a provincial health official in the Lombardy region told reporters.
Italy is desperate to avoid a repeat of March 2020, when it became the first European country to deal with a severe virus outbreak that swept the world and killed millions.
Some Asian countries, including Japan and India, have also imposed new testing requirements for Chinese arrivals, ahead of a surge in visitors after President Xi Jinping’s government scrapped what remained of the zero- Covid which cut him off from the world for almost three years.
China is in the grip of an unprecedented wave of viruses, with tens of millions of people infected daily. At the same time, the end of zero-Covid has led to an increase in demand for international travel since Beijing announced on Boxing Day that it would lift numerous measures from January 8. Travel booking site Trip.com said Chinese outbound bookings rose more than 250 percent on Tuesday from the previous day.
Orazio Schillaci, Italian Minister of Health © Alessia Pierdomenico/Bloomberg
Calls have been made for other countries to impose restrictions. Juergen Hardt, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition German Christian Democrats, on Wednesday demanded the suspension of all flights from China to Germany.
“The explosion in the number of Covid in China threatens the whole world with a new wave of infections,” he told the RND media group. “Only when we are sure that there is no threat of a dangerous new transfer outside of China can we resume air links.”
Sebastian Gülde, spokesman for the German health ministry, said authorities were “monitoring the situation in China very closely”. “But so far, we have no indication that a more dangerous mutation is emerging from this outbreak.” This meant there was no reason to declare China a virus variant zone, which would lead to travel restrictions for those arriving from the country.
The UK also said it was not considering restrictions for travelers arriving from China.
Additional reporting by Giuliana Ricozzi in Rome, Guy Chazan in Berlin and Jasmine Cameron-Chileshe in London
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