Chinese officials announced on Monday (December 26) that they would significantly relax border quarantine measures. However, the large-scale domestic epidemic outbreak and opaque epidemic data have caused concerns in many countries. The United States is currently considering strengthening epidemic prevention measures for people entering from China.
According to Bloomberg, an unnamed US official said that Washington is currently consulting with public health experts and international partners, and will consider new entry control measures for inbound travelers from China based on the content of the consultations.
The U.S. official said the surge in domestic coronavirus cases in China and China's transparency in reporting data on the spread of the coronavirus have raised concerns and questions in the U.S. government. Without genome sequencing data, it will be difficult to identify new mutant strains of the coronavirus once they emerge, prompting the U.S. government to impose new controls on arrivals from China.
China's National Health Commission announced on Monday that starting from January 8 next year, people entering China will no longer be required to undergo nucleic acid tests and centralized quarantine. Entrants only need to obtain a negative test result within 48 hours before departure. By then, China will also resume processing applications for ordinary passports for Chinese citizens traveling abroad or visiting friends.
But at the same time, China is experiencing a new wave of large-scale epidemic outbreaks that have attracted the attention of public health officials around the world. Public health experts worry that allowing the coronavirus to spread could give rise to a dangerous new variant.
On the day after China relaxed its border quarantine policy, Japan announced that it would strengthen anti-epidemic measures for people arriving from China from December 30. All immigrants coming to Japan from mainland China and who have been to mainland China within the past seven days must be tested when entering Japan. Japan will also restrict the increase in frequency of Chinese flights.
At the same time, according to the Malaysian "Sin Chew Daily" report, in order to deal with the sharp increase in the risk of imported coronavirus cases, the Malaysian Ministry of Health also announced on Tuesday that it will strengthen preparation and response plans, including six plans to strengthen the digital management of coronavirus and strengthen the monitoring of coronavirus cases.
reported that Chinese travel platform search data shows that Malaysia is among the top 10 destinations with the fastest growing search volume on Chinese travel platforms.
The U.S. government is weighing similar measures as a way to prevent further spread of the coronavirus , the U.S. official said.
