WASHINGTON - The United States will require airline passengers coming from China to show negative Covid-19 tests as global concerns over the virus’ spread ratchet higher since the country lifted restrictions aimed at stamping out infections.

Citing the need to protect Americans’ health, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention announced that from Jan 5, all air travellers originating in China will have to provide a new negative Covid-19 test to airlines before they depart.

“The recent rapid increase in Covid-19 transmission in China increases the potential for new variants emerging,” a senior US health official told reporters in a phone briefing.

However, the official said, Beijing has provided only limited data about circulating variants in China to global databases, and its testing and reporting on new cases has also diminished.

US health experts are particularly concerned about the emergence of new variants that might not be picked up in testing in China. Health officials said they will continue to press China to release data and genome sequences of the virus.

Travellers coming directly from China or who were in the country 10 days before their departure to the US will have to show either a negative PCR or antigen test for the coronavirus.

The requirement applies to all passengers regardless of nationality or vaccination status and will go into effect from Jan 5 at 12.01am New York time.

Passengers who tested positive more than 10 days before travelling can provide documentation and recovery from Covid-19 in lieu of a negative test result, federal health officials said. Airlines will need to confirm the negative Covid-19 test or documentation of recovery prior to boarding flights to the US. The requirement also applies to travellers from Hong Kong and Macau.

The US move came after Italy, Japan, India and Malaysia announced their own measures to protect against importing new Covid-19 variants from China.

Taiwan, a self-ruled island that China claims as its own, also said on Wednesday that it would also screen travellers from the mainland for the virus.

Meanwhile, Mr Dirk De fauw, mayor of Bruges, Belgium, which is popular with Chinese tourists, called for Chinese visitors to face Covid-19 tests or mandatory vaccine requirements, the Belga news agency reported.

“The infection rate is still very high. I think we have to work either with a vaccination certificate or with tests,” said Mr De fauw.

In the US, Covid-19 testing at airports has tapered off as countries have abandoned pandemic-era travel restrictions. However, US health officials said that voluntary testing and sequencing at airports has continued and will be further expanded under a new effort to ramp up precautions amid the outbreak in China.

The US CDC will expand its viral genomic surveillance programme of travellers to two additional airports, bringing the total number of airports collecting samples for sequencing to seven. Passengers boarding hundreds of flights from at least 30 countries are covered by the programme.

Covid-19 has been spreading unabated in China since the government lifted its policy of strict quarantines and isolation for exposed and infected people. Almost 37 million people may have been infected with the virus on a single day last week, according to estimates from the Chinese government’s top health authority.

For the past three years, Chinese officials have adhered to stringent rules around testing and quarantines that were often subject to international criticism. Earlier in December, after widespread protests against the restrictive policies, Chinese officials abruptly announced lifting of the restrictive policies without a plan for simultaneously boosting vaccination coverage.

That has allowed the virus to spread rapidly, filling healthcare facilities with sick patients, most without immunity from vaccination or prior infection like the majority of people in other countries.

China’s Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reported 5,231 new Covid-19 cases and three deaths nationwide on Wednesday – likely a drastic undercount since people are no longer required to declare infections to authorities.

“Currently the development of China’s epidemic situation is overall predictable and under control,” foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Wednesday.

“Hyping, smearing and political manipulation with ulterior motives can’t stand the test of facts,” Mr Wang added, calling Western media reporting on the Covid-19 surge “completely biased”. BLOOMBERG, AFP