The US government may impose new Covid-19 restrictions on travelers from China amid concerns about the “lack of transparent data” provided by Beijing on the resurgence of the outbreak, US officials said on Wednesday.
Japan, India and Malaysia this week announced strengthened sanitary measures regarding travelers from China, citing the outbreak of contamination in the country. Tokyo, for example, has reported that a negative test will now be required.
“Infections are spreading fast”
This Tokyo measure will take effect from Friday. Visitors from China will thus be the only ones in Japan to automatically have to take a Covid test, in addition to any traveler who shows symptoms upon arrival in Japan.
There is “information that infections are spreading rapidly” in China, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters.
And “it is difficult to establish the situation precisely due to the important differences between central and local authorities, as well as between the government and the private sector,” he continued. “This is generating growing concern in Japan.”
China announced this Monday the end of mandatory quarantines upon arrival in its territory as of January 8, the last vestige of its drastic measures against the Covid-19 pandemic that have been in force since 2020.
But the launch of this “zero covid” strategy since the beginning of December has been accompanied by a worrying rebound in infections in the country.
The Chinese authorities have even stopped publishing daily data on the health situation since Sunday. The official figures were increasingly criticized because their underestimation of infection cases and deaths had become flagrant.
Source: BFM TV
