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The US may place restrictions on travelers from China, as officials fear rampant spread of the virus in the East Asian country in recent weeks could have led to the formation of a new, dangerous, Covid strain.
Arrivals may be required to test upon arrival in the US, and face other barriers to entry. China has reportedly suffered an explosion of Covid cases in recent weeks after abruptly ending its draconian ‘zero-Covid policy’.
Restrictions on Chinese citizens exiting the country have also been lifted. Previously, residents had to prove they had an important reason, like set business dealings, to exit the nation. Now, they can leave for tourism purposes. Around 75 flights arrived in the US from Beijing alone between December 26 and 28.
Officials also fear Chinese leaders are concealing Covid death figures. Most important, the lack of genomic data available from China has raised fears of a new strain. Some fear the situation could put the world back at ‘square one’ of the pandemic.
It echoes the situation early in the pandemic, where China was reluctant to inform the world of the true scale of the viruses outbreak – allowing the rest of the world to be caught off-guard by Covid. By the time the US did close travel from China in early February, thousands of potentially-infected passengers had already made it into the states.
Italy has instituted a similar policy as many travelers from Beijing head west after strict Covid policies were finally lifted. The change was made after up to half of passengers on two flights from China to Milan were carrying the virus. Nearby Taiwan and Malaysia have done the same.
Pictured: Patients receiving treatment at Tianjin Nankai Hospital on December 28, after the Chinese government announced it would finally ease restrictions
Patients were seen on gurneys in the waiting room of Tianjin First Center Hospital as medics deal with a new surge in cases
Government officials said: ‘There are mounting concerns in the international community on the ongoing Covid surges in China and the lack of transparent data, including viral genomic sequence data, being reported from [China].
‘Without this data, it is becoming increasingly difficult for public health officials to ensure that they will be able to identify any potential new variants and take prompt measures to reduce the spread.’
Officials from Taiwan and Japan will begin requiring a negative Covid test for visitors from mainland China.
Malaysia, meanwhile, has also ‘announced new tracking and surveillance measures,’ according to the US.
China will drop quarantine requirements for international arrivals from January 8, in a major step toward reopening its borders that have isolated the country from the rest of the world for nearly three years.
It opened the rest of the world to travelers from China on Monday, though.
The country had maintained a strict ‘zero-Covid policy’ dating back to the early days of the pandemic.
The strategy imposed widespread lockdowns in the country, bringing the economy and society to a standstill.
The policy also limited exposure to the virus which over time decreases a person’s immune system’s vulnerability to it.
General immunity in the US is relatively high because the population has been exposed time and again to the virus over the past few years.
When combined with the immune boosting power of vaccines, the population is now blanketed in protection for the most part.
Frustration at the Chinese government boiled over when protesters took to the streets en masse demanding an end to the rigid zero Covid policy earlier this year.
Covid cases ended up exploding immediately after Chinese officials budged on their stance.
But to what extent cases and fatalities have increased remains unclear.
The Chinese government has not publicized the necessary data and the relatively low death toll – less than 17,000 since the start of the pandemic – is believed to be an undercount.
China’s National Health Commission reported 40,052 new cases nationwide Monday, setting a record for the fifth day in a row.
Officials from the Asian nation are claiming the situation is under control.
‘Currently the development of China’s epidemic situation is overall predictable and under control,’ foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Wednesday.
‘Hyping, smearing and political manipulation with ulterior motives can’t stand the test of facts,’ Wang added, calling Western media reporting on China’s Covid surge ‘completely biased’.
But hospitals and crematoriums across China continue to be overwhelmed by an influx of mostly elderly people who are ill with the virus.
Dozens of mostly elderly Covid patients were seen lying on gurneys in overflowing hospital emergency wards in Tianjin, 87 miles southwest of the capital Beijing on Wednesday.
Other countries have expressed concerns about the potential for new variants to emerge as China battles the world’s biggest surge in infections.
Dr Simon Clarke, a microbiologist based at the University of Reading, told MailOnline last month: ‘Every single Covid infection presents the virus with an opportunity to change its characteristics.
‘The idea that this only leads to decreased lethality is simply wrong; having effective population-wide immunity seems to have had a much more substantial protective effect, but compared to the vaccines used here it seems that China’s is less effective, which might be contributing to their problem.
‘Large scale, mass infections, even if they don’t cause severe disease, are a cauldron of virus evolution which allow them to change and potentially become more lethal or less sensitive to existing immunity.’
Covid has largely vanished as an everyday threat to Americans, even during these winter months that saw devastating surges the two previous years.
America is recorded 67,215 confirmed infections each day, a figure that has remained the same over the past two weeks.
Just under 400 deaths – 388 – are suffered from Covid each day, an 18 percent fall in the past 14 days.
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