US announces new Covid testing rules for travelers from China

The United States has announced new Covid-19 testing requirements for all travelers from China, joining other countries imposing restrictions as infections surge.

Cases have risen across China after the country lifted strict anti-virus controls. China’s “zero Covid” policy has kept the country’s infection rate low but fueled public discontent and dampened economic growth.

Beginning Jan. 5, all travelers traveling from China to the U.S. must be tested for Covid-19 within two days of travel and provide a negative test before boarding a flight. The test is suitable for anyone ages two and older.

Japan will require travelers from China to test negative for Covid-19 on arrival, and Malaysia announced new tracking and surveillance measures. India, South Korea and Taiwan are also requiring virus testing for travelers from China.

The Lunar New Year, which begins Jan. 22, is typically China’s busiest travel season, and the government announced on Tuesday that it would resume issuing tourist passports for the first time since the pandemic began in 2020.

The U.S. action was to reinstate the requirement for some international travelers.

The Biden administration rescinded the last such authorization in June. At the time, experts continued to advise people boarding flights bound for the U.S. to get tested close to departure time and not travel if sick.

In a statement explaining the restrictions, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cited a surge in infections and said China lacked sufficient and transparent information, including genome sequencing of the strains circulating in the country.

“These data are critical to effectively monitor case surges and reduce the chance of new variants entering,” the CDC said.

“What we want to avoid is having a variant come into the U.S. and spread like we’ve seen with Delta or Omicron,” said Matthew Binnick, director of clinical virology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

But Dr. David Dowdy, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the CDC’s actions may not be about stopping a new variant from crossing the U.S. border, but more about it. Much of the effort was to put more pressure on China to share more information, adding that he hoped the restrictions “would not last longer than needed”.

“I don’t think it will have a significant impact on slowing the spread of Covid-19,” Dr Dowdy said. “We’ve had a lot of Covid-19 spread within our borders.”

Early in the pandemic, the U.S. banned the entry of foreigners traveling from China, weeks after the virus first emerged there three years ago. Americans were allowed to return home and flights from China were funneled to selected airports, where passengers were screened for the disease, but the virus was already spreading among people in the United States who had no travel history.