Growing number of nations imposing COVID rules on China arrivals

A growing number of countries have announced that they will introduce curbs on visitor arrivals from China following the Chinese Government’s announcement that its international borders will reopen from 8th January.

With the Chinese Government having abruptly revealed a rolling back of its stringent ‘zero-Covid’ policy earlier this week, countries including Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, India, the USA and Italy are to introduce measures including mandatory COVID-19 tests on arrivals from China.

Amid report reports that the Coronavirus is continuing to claim thousands of lives across the world’s most populous nation and fears that Chinese authorities are failing to be transparent about the extent of the pandemic, flights that arrived in the Italian cities of Rome and Milan from China this week reportedly had half its passengers testing positive.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it is very concerned about rising reports of severe cases and new variants across China with WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus appealing to Chinese authorities to be more forthcoming with detailed data on the pandemic situation in a series of tweets on Thursday.

China is reporting about 5,000 cases a day, but analysts say such numbers are vastly undercounted - and the daily case load may be closer to a million. Hospitals are overwhelmed and residents are struggling to find basic medicines, according to reports.

On Wednesday, the US Government said a lack of "adequate and transparent" Covid data in China had contributed to the decision to require Covid tests from 5th January for travellers entering the country from China, Hong Kong and Macau.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this was needed "to help slow the spread of the virus as we work to identify ... any potential new variants that may emerge".

Australia and the Philippines are among countries said to be monitoring situation

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese advised that no changes were being made to its rules regarding arrivals from China, advising as of yesterday afternoon “there is no change in the travel advice at this point in time but we are continuing to monitor the situation, as we continue to monitor the impact of COVID here in Australia as well as around the world.”