she decided united stateBeside Japan And several European countries by imposing controls on travelers from Chinaas part of precautionary measures that the head of the World Health Organization considered “understandable”, given the lack of information from Beijing after the lifting of restrictions to combat Covid.
On Thursday, Chinese health authorities said they had released the data “for reasons of openness and transparency,” according to statements reported by China’s new news agency, Xinhua.
On Friday, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced just 5,515 new cases and one death, and these numbers no longer reflect reality as large-scale testing is no longer enforced.
The European Union health agency said it believed the imposition of mandatory Covid-19 checks on travelers from China was “unwarranted”.
Less impact
The European Center for Disease Control and Prevention said it did not think the high number of infections in China will affect the epidemiological situation in the bloc, “given the increased immunity of the population within the countries of the European Union and the European Economic Area, in addition to the fact that the variants currently circulating in China have appeared previously and subsequently changed.” .
3 years after the first cases of Covid-19 appeared in Wuhan (middle), China abruptly reversed its strict “Zero Covid” policy on December 7.
This policy, adopted since 2020, has allowed the population to be largely protected from the virus, thanks to generalized tests, rigorous movement monitoring, and also mandatory and sanitary quarantine once cases are discovered.
However, these harsh measures, which have kept the country largely isolated from the rest of the planet, dealt a major blow to the world’s second-largest economy and sparked extraordinary unrest last November.
Since restrictions were lifted, hospitals have filled up with patients, most of whom are elderly and frail from not having been vaccinated, while many pharmacies lack medicines to reduce fever.
“adequate measures”
China has kept its borders largely closed to foreign nationals since 2020, and the country stopped issuing tourist visas about 3 years ago while enforcing mandatory quarantine upon arrival.
This quarantine procedure will be lifted on January 8, but the PCR test still needs to be done 48 hours in advance.
In response, the United States and other countries, including Italy, Japan and South Korea, announced they would require negative COVID-19 tests for all arrivals from mainland China.
The Spanish government on Friday ordered travelers from China to carry out “checks” at its airports to make sure they do not have Covid.
And Spanish Health Minister Carolina Darías told a press conference that these arrivals will be asked for “proof that their tests are negative (…) or a certificate of complete vaccination”, without mentioning the effective date of measuring.
On Friday, the Israeli Ministry of Health announced that foreigners from China would be required to show a negative Covid test.
Health Minister Aryeh Deri called on the ministry’s interests to set up a “voluntary” examination center for people returning from China and recommended citizens “avoid” traveling to this country.
On Friday, the French government announced it was mandatory to present a negative Covid-19 test for travelers heading to France before taking off from China.
In the UK, the government announced it would impose a similar measure on arrivals from China, British media reported on Friday.
In an indication of divisions in Europe over the response to the new situation in China, Germany, for its part, is calling for monitoring the spread of Covid-19 mutants at European airports without going so far as to impose corona tests.
In Brussels, an informal meeting convened by the European Commission to develop a “coordinated approach” for member states did not lead to a decision one way or the other.
Most of the Chinese, interviewed on Thursday by “Agence France Presse” at the Beijing Capital International Airport, expressed their understanding for the measures taken against the country.
“Useless”
“Every country has its own fears and ways of protecting itself,” said Huang Hong Xu, 21, noting that the possible spread of new variants is a cause for concern.
One traveler told AFP the measures were “useless”. Since “it’s a kind of discrimination”.
The 22-year-old noted that in China “our Covid policy is applied to international arrivals in the same way as everyone else,” asking, “Why are other countries treating people arriving from China in a special way?”
On the pandemic front, hospitals are grappling with a surge in cases that hit the elderly hardest.
And in Shanghai, AFP reporters saw patients wearing masks being carried on stretchers to a city hospital on Thursday. Inside the hospital, a patient complained that he had waited 4 hours to receive his medicine.
