United States President Joe Biden's administration announced new COVID-19 travel restrictions on arrivals coming from China as the Asian country reports an increased spread of the virus among its residents.
The list of restrictions will affect not only travelers from China but also from Hong Kong and Macau. Foreigners from included areas will be required to present negative COVID-19 tests before entering the United States.
Restrictions on Travelers from China
The requirement will be implemented on Jan. 5, 2023, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Officials from the health agency said that they were deeply concerned over China's lack of transparency about its recent outbreak. This is particularly true of Beijing's failure to track and sequence variants and subvariants that were circulating in its territories.
CDC authorities said that the new requirement for testing will apply to air passengers regardless of their nationality and vaccination status. The restriction will also apply to travelers who are coming from China and wish to enter the U.S. through a third country or those who connect through the U.S. to other destinations, as per the New York Times.
The news comes as Italy and Japan have also imposed similar restrictions and India has mandated negative COVID-19 test reports and random screening at airports for travelers coming from China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Thailand.
However, some experts questioned whether the testing requirement would do any good for the situation, especially given the surge in cases in some parts of the U.S. Scientists said that the virus spread in the northeast was being fueled by an Omicron subvariant known as XBB, which seems to be spreading much quicker than those related to the dominant variant in Beijing.
According to Fox News, the CDC said that the restrictions seek to curb the spread of COVID-19 within the U.S. following a surge in China. Federal health officials said that the policy came as Beijing is slowly lifting its "zero-COVID" policies in various areas in the country.
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COVID-19 Spread in the U.S.
The U.S. would also be expanding the Traveler-based Genomic Surveillance program (TGS), which collects anonymous nasal swabs from international travelers at select airports. It is done in order to help identify any new variants of the virus and will be expanded to include airports in Seattle and Los Angeles.
The CDC's new restrictions are the latest international response to a drastic shift in strategy from the Chinese Communist Party. China has been seen as implementing some of the most authoritarian COVID-19 policies that seek to stomp out the virus.
The Chinese government has already stopped reporting nationwide case numbers of the coronavirus but officials have reportedly estimated that roughly 250 million people have been infected in the last three weeks.
With regards to the new policy for air travelers from China, passengers who test positive more than 10 days before their flight can provide documentation of their recovery in lieu of a negative test result.
In a statement, a federal health official said that the new restrictions will not eliminate all risks or completely prevent people who are infected from entering the U.S. However, they will add a layer of protection that will limit the number of infected people and provide officials with an early warning about new variants, CNN reported.
