US to impose mandatory COVID-19 tests for travelers from China

US health officials have said the United States will impose mandatory COVID-19 tests on travelers from China, accusing Beijing of not sharing enough information about the surge in coronavirus cases there.

From January 5, "all 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," a federal health official said on Wednesday, joining India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan in taking new measures after China’s decision to lift stringent zero-COVID policies.

The health officials told reporters that passengers who test positive more than 10 days before a flight can provide documentation of recovery in lieu of the negative test result, Reuters reported.

They attributed the change in policy to the lack of information on variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and said that the increased number of COVID cases in China could result in the development of new variants of the virus.

The United States also is expanding its voluntary genomic sequencing program at airports, adding Seattle and Los Angeles to the program. That brings the total number of airports gathering information from positive tests to seven.

China this month began dismantling the world's strictest COVID regime of lockdowns and extensive testing, putting its economy on course for a complete re-opening next year.
Some international health experts claimed that the lifting of restrictions means COVID is spreading largely unchecked and likely infecting millions of people a day.
Washington has said that Beijing’s official COVID data and its tally of deaths are inconsistent with the scale of its outbreak.

"We have just limited information in terms of what's being shared related to number of cases that are increasing, hospitalizations and especially deaths. Also, there's been a decrease in testing across China so it also makes it difficult to know what the true infection rate is," a US health official told the briefing.

Some health experts have said the virus could infect as many as 1 million people per day, and international modeling groups have predicted China could experience 2 million deaths or more.

US officials said China’s lack of transparent data and handling of the pandemic, as a reason for considering its own travel restrictions.

China ends travel quarantine for international arrivals

China says it will drop quarantine requirements for international arrivals from January, in an abrupt decision to reopen its borders after almost three years.

China’s National Health Commission said in a statement on Monday that it would stop requiring inbound travelers to go into quarantine starting from January 8.

It said travelers to the mainland would only need to show a negative COVID-19 test from the last 48 hours.

While on the flight, passengers would need to still wear a face mask, the announcement said.

The scrapping of travel restrictions will also allow Chinese citizens to travel overseas.

The health commission also said that Beijing would downgrade COVID-19 to a class B infectious disease from the current top-level category A.

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