The list continues to grow. Friday, December 30, South Korea, Israel and Spain, in turn, decided to impose restrictions on travelers from China. The latter will have to present a negative screening test result to enter the territory of these three countries.
Since the lifting of health restrictions against Covid-19 in China, the international community has been concerned about an epidemic rebound and the appearance of new variants. As a precaution, the United States and several countries, including Italy and Japan, announced on Wednesday that they would require negative test results from passengers coming from China.
Measurements “understandable”, estimates the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in view of the little information provided by Beijing. In France, Emmanuel Macron has him “requested appropriate protective measures” from the people to the government.
In Brussels, an informal meeting convened by the European Commission on Thursday aimed at “a coordinated approach” of the Member States, has not given rise to decisions being taken one way or another. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control has for its part estimated that the introduction of screening in the European Union would for the time being “unjustified”given the level of immunity in Europe and the presence of the same variants of Covid-19 on the Old Continent as in China.
Chinese hospitals overwhelmed
Three years after the appearance of the first cases of Covid-19 in Wuhan (Hubei province), China put an end without notice, on December 7, to its draconian policy known as “zero Covid”. Since 2020, it had allowed the population to be largely protected from the virus, thanks to generalized screening tests, but at the cost of strict monitoring of movements and compulsory confinements and quarantines as soon as cases were discovered.
These measures, which kept the country largely isolated from the rest of the planet, dealt a severe blow to the second largest economy in the world and provoked, in November, unusual demonstrations of discontent.
Since the lifting of restrictions, Chinese hospitals have been overwhelmed by a surge of sick people, most of them elderly and vulnerable because they have been little or not vaccinated, while many pharmacies are short of fever medication.
Figures do not reflect reality
Despite the resurgence of the epidemic, the authorities will end, on January 8, the mandatory quarantines on arrival in China, and allow Chinese to travel abroad, after three years during which the country maintained its borders largely closed to foreigners and no longer issued tourist visas. A screening test of less than forty-eight hours will nevertheless always be required.
Health authorities in China assured on Thursday that they had always published data “in a desire for openness and transparency”according to comments quoted by the official news agency China news.
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On Friday, only 5,515 new cases and one death were announced by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Figures which do not seem to reflect reality, however, as generalized screening is no longer compulsory.