Travelore News: US Will Require COVID-19 Testing For Travelers From China

The U.S. announced new COVID-19 testing requirements Wednesday for all travelers from China, joining other nations imposing restrictions because of a surge of infections.

The increase in cases across China follows the rollback of the nation’s strict anti-virus controls. China’s “zero COVID” policies had kept China’s infection rate low but fueled public frustration and crushed economic growth.

In a statement explaining the restrictions, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited the surge in infections and what it said was a lack of adequate and transparent information from China, including genomic sequencing on the viral strains circulating in the country.

“These data are critical to monitor the case surge effectively and decrease the chance for entry of a novel variant of concern,” the CDC said.

Some scientists are concerned t he COVID-19 surge in China could unleash a new coronavirus variant on the world that may or may not be similar to the ones circulating now. That’s because every infection is another chance for the virus to mutate.

“What we want to avoid is having a variant enter into the U.S. and spread like we saw with delta or omicron,” said Matthew Binnicker, director of clinical virology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

But the CDC’s action may be less about stopping a new variant from crossing U.S. borders and more about increasing pressure on China to share more information, said Dr. David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, adding he hopes the restrictions “aren’t kept in place longer than they need to be.”

“I don’t think it’s going to have a major impact in slowing the spread of COVID-19,” Dowdy said. “We have a whole lot of transmission of COVID-19 here within our borders already.”

Beginning Jan. 5, all travelers to the U.S. from China will be required to take a COVID-19 test no more than two days before travel and provide a negative test before boarding their flight. The testing applies to anyone 2 years and older, including U.S. citizens.

Other countries have taken similar steps in an effort to keep infections from spreading beyond China’s borders. Japan will require a negative COVID-19 test upon arrival for travelers from China, and Malaysia announced new tracking and surveillance measures. India, South Korea and Taiwan are requiring virus tests for visitors from China.

Lunar New Year, which begins Jan. 22, is usually China’s busiest travel season, and China announced Tuesday it will resume issuing passports for tourism for the first time since the start of the pandemic in 2020.

The U.S. action is a return to requirements for some international travelers. The Biden administration lifted the last of such mandates in June. At that time, the CDC continued to recommend that people boarding flights to the U.S. get tested close to departure time and not travel if they are sick.

Travelore News: US Suspends Chinese Airline Flights In COVID-19 Dispute

The U.S. government is suspending 26 flights by Chinese airlines from the United States to China in a dispute over anti-virus controls after Beijing suspended flights by American carriers.

The Department of Transportation on Thursday complained Beijing violated an air travel agreement and treated airlines unfairly under a system that requires them to suspend flights if passengers test positive for COVID-19.

U.S. regulators suspended seven flights by Air China Ltd. from New York City and a total of 19 flights from Los Angeles by Air China, China Eastern Airlines Ltd., China Southern Airlines Ltd. and Xiamen Airlines Ltd., according to the Department of Transportation.

It said that was equal to the number of flights United Airlines, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines were required to cancel under Beijing’s “circuit-breaker” system.

The ruling Communist Party’s “zero COVID” strategy aims to keep the virus out of China while other governments are shifting to living with the disease. That has kept case numbers low but disrupted travel, manufacturing and trade. Beijing is easing travel curbs, but most foreign visitors still are barred from China.

Until Aug. 7, if up to nine passengers on a flight tested positive, a carrier could suspend a flight for two weeks or reduce the passengers it carried to 40% of the possible total, according to DoT. It said that since Aug. 7 airlines have been required to suspend a flight if the number of positive tests reaches 4% of passengers on one flight.

The agency complained that airlines face “undue culpability” for passengers who present negative test results before boarding but test positive after arriving in China.

China’s actions are “premised on circumstances wholly outside of the carriers’ control,” the U.S. statement said.

“We reserve the right to take additional action” if Beijing imposes “further circuit-breaker measures,” the statement said.

Chinese Travel For Lunar New Year Despite Plea To Stay Put

Chinese are traveling to their hometowns for the Lunar New Year, the country’s biggest family holiday, despite a government plea to stay where they are as Beijing tries to contain coronavirus outbreaks.

The holiday, which starts with Chinese New Year’s Eve on Monday, usually is the biggest annual movement of humanity as hundreds of millions of people who migrated for work visit their parents and sometimes spouses and children they left behind or travel abroad.

Some 260 million people traveled in the 10 says since the holiday rush started Jan. 17, less than before the pandemic but up 46% over last year, official data shows. The government forecasts a total of 1.2 billion trips during the holiday season, up 36% from a year ago.

“I know we are encouraged to spend the New Year in Beijing, but I haven’t been back home for three years,” said Wang Yilei, whose hometown is Tangshan, east of the capital. “My parents are getting old and they are looking forward to seeing me.”

The Chinese capital, Beijing, is tightening controls to contain coronavirus outbreaks ahead of next week’s opening of the Winter Olympics, a high-profile prestige event.

China’s infection numbers are modest compared with India, South Korea and some other countries. But they challenge Beijing’s “zero tolerance” strategy that aims to keep the virus out of China by isolating every infected person.

Athletes, reporters and officials at the Winter Games are required to avoid contact with outsiders in hopes of preventing infection.

Some 106 of the 3,695 people who arrived from abroad for the Games so far tested positive for the coronavirus. Two are athletes or team officials.

Authorities in Beijing have ordered mass testing for more than 2 million people in the capital’s Fengtai district following outbreaks there. Some families were ordered not to leave their homes.

Elsewhere, 1.2 million people in an area 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Beijing that is being developed as a possible site for ministries to relocate were told to stay put.

Restrictions were imposed on Xiong’an New District this week after five cases were found in people who came from the capital, according to notices circulated online by residents. They said the controls would last seven days.

People who travel are required to show a negative result of a virus test within 48 hours before departure.

“We should go back home for the New Year as long as we can, if the local prevention policies allow us to,” said Wu Jinpeng, a university student who was en route from the southern island of Hainan to his hometown near Beijing.

Some travelers face the prospect of being ordered into quarantine if they arrive from areas deemed at high risk of infection.

Travelers are tracked by “health code” software on smartphones that records where they go and the results of virus tests.

“I called the government hotline of my hometown and they said I can go back, as long as my health code is green,” said Sun Jinle, a bank employee from Qinhuangdao, east of Beijing.

“If I live in Fengtai District of Beijing then I can’t (go home),” Sun said. “Luckily, I live in Tongzhou District,” which has no travel ban.

China Puts City Of 13 Million In Lockdown Ahead Of Olympics

BEIJING (AP) — China plunged a city of 13 million people into lockdown on Thursday to stamp out an increase in coronavirus infections, as the country doubles down on its “zero tolerance” policy just weeks before it is set to host the Winter Olympics.

The restrictions in the northeastern city of Xi’an took effect at midnight Wednesday, with no word on when they might be lifted. They are some of the harshest since China imposed a strict lockdown last year on more than 11 million people in and around the city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected in late 2019.

One person from each household will be allowed out every two days to buy household necessities, a government order said. Other family members were required to stay at home, although the rule was not being rigorously enforced, according to social media posts. People who happened to be staying in hotels became stuck.

There was no word on whether the new cases were of the recently identified omicron variant that appears more contagious and is driving surges in many parts of the world — or the previous version, delta. China has reported just seven omicron cases so far, but none in Xi’an.

Though the latest outbreak is 1,000 kilometers (about 620 miles) southwest of the Olympic host city of Beijing, any sign that the pandemic might be worsening in China will raise questions about whether and how it will manage to welcome thousands of athletes, officials and journalists when the Games open in just weeks on Feb. 4.

On the one hand, there is a tremendous amount of national pride and investment riding on the Olympics and few would want a cancellation, postponement or dramatic reimagining at this late stage. On the other, Chinese authorities have adopted draconian measures throughout the pandemic under their policy of seeking to stamp out every last case — and it’s hard to see how welcoming so many people from abroad will square with that strategy.

That “zero tolerance” policy, which has led to frequent lockdowns, universal masking and mass testing, has not been entirely successful. It has resulted in massive disruptions to travel and trade, but Beijing credits it with largely containing the spread of the virus. Overall, China has reported 4,636 deaths and 100,644 cases of COVID-19.

Xi’an — the capital of Shaanxi province, famed for its imperial relics, as well as a major center of industry — reported another 63 locally transmitted cases on Thursday, pushing the city’s total to at least 211 over the past week.

China has also been dealing with a substantial coronavirus outbreak in several cities in the eastern province of Zhejiang near Shanghai, although isolation measures there have been more narrowly targeted.

“We are not receiving any new guests, and no present guests are allowed to leave the hotel,” said a receptionist at the Hanting Hotel in Xi’an, who only gave her surname, Li.