After Beijing lifted restrictions on international travel despite an increase in cases and amid concerns about its data reporting, France on Friday joined a growing list of countries mandating Covid testing on travelers from China.
The UK media said that Britain may soon join Spain, South Korea, and Israel in requiring confirmation of a negative test for tourists leaving China.
China argued on Friday that it had been transparent in providing its Covid-19 statistics, despite the fact that its hospitals and morgues were overflowing and there was international alarm over the low official figures for infections and fatalities there.
A senior US health official claimed on Wednesday that Beijing had reduced its testing and reporting of new cases and had only sent scant information to international databases regarding variants spreading in China.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, asked China to be more forthright on Thursday, saying it was “understandable” that some nations have imposed limits in reaction to the Covid-19 increase.
However, Wang Wenbin, a spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry, said on Friday: “China has been openly and transparently sharing pertinent information and data with the international community, including WHO, ever since the epidemic first broke out.
We provided the new coronavirus sequence in the first instance, making significant contributions to the creation of pertinent vaccinations and medications in other nations.
A national disease control organization in China reported 5,500 new local cases and one death on Friday, but with the termination of mass testing and the tightening of the definition of a Covid fatality, it is now thought that such figures do not accurately reflect reality.
In an effort to prevent the importation of novel viral variations, France, Spain, South Korea, and Israel have joined Italy, Japan, India, Malaysia, Taiwan, and the United States in mandating negative Covid testing for all travelers from mainland China.
However, Switzerland declared that it will leave its borders open to visitors from China.
Wang claimed in Beijing that health authorities in a number of nations had determined there was no need to impose entry restrictions on visitors from China.
Due to the high levels of immunity in the EU and European Economic Area, such limitations are not now necessary, according to the infectious disease agency of the European Union (ECDC).
Germany appeared to acknowledge this on Friday when it stated that it did not now see the necessity to subject arrivals from China to frequent inspections.
However, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach argued in favor of a coordinated, EU-wide approach to track variants at airports across Europe.
We require a European response, he declared.
He noted that an unified strategy would make it simpler to quickly identify novel coronavirus types and implement the necessary countermeasures.
Routine tests were “not yet necessary” for arrivals from China, but that could change given the unreliability of data sourced from China.
Health Minister Carolina Darias provided the following justification for the limitations Spain had decided to impose: “A significant worry is the potential for uncontrolled new variations to arise in China.
We are aware of the significance of acting swiftly as well as with coordination given the health situation in that nation, she continued.
The National Health Commission of China’s (NHC) Jiao Yahui asserted on Thursday that Beijing had always made data on “Covid-19 deaths and severe cases in the spirit of openness and transparency” available.
The NHC announced last week that it would stop providing a daily official count of Covid fatalities.
However, the health risk research company Airfinity reported that by the end of April 2023, it expects there to be 1.7 million fatalities nationwide, up from the current projection of 9,000 daily deaths and 1.8 million illnesses in China.
The research company located in Britain said that their model was based on data from China’s regional regions before to the implementation of modifications to reporting infections, as well as case growth rates from other formerly zero-Covid countries after they loosened restrictions.
This month, China said that it would no longer need new arrivals to undergo a required quarantine and that it had given up on taking strong anti-virus measures.
Beginning on January 8, the most populated nation in the world will treat Covid-19 as a Class B illness rather than a more serious Class A infection.
