(MENAFN- Asia Times) The United States is considering launching new precautions for travelers coming from China, which will resume quarantine-free travel on January 8 despite large-scale virus outbreaks.
Washington is worried by the increase of COVID cases in China and the low transparency of data the country was reporting, Bloomberg reported , citing unnamed US officials.
Prior to this, places including India, Japan and Italy's Milan have relaunched Covid test requirements for people coming from China as they are worried that some new Covid variants could emerge due to ultrafast virus transmission.
China's National Health Commission said no new variant had been detected so far while most pneumonia cases were caused by the Omicron variant, instead of the Delta or original strains.
Since China's government announced a 10-point notice on December 7 calling on local authorities to avoid lockdowns, reduce PCR tests and allow Covid patients to quarantine at home rather than in state-run facilities, the number of Covid infections has grown exponentially.
On December 23, the health commission in Shandong province's Qingdao, which has a 10.26 million population, said the number of Covid infections in the city was ranging from around 490,000 to 530,000 per day – and the figure would continue to increase.
Guangdong province's Dongguan, which has a 10.54 million population, also said on the same day that it reported about 250,000 to 300,000 positive cases per day. It said the actual number of infections should be higher than this.
On Saturday, Zhejiang province, which has a 65.4 million population, said its daily infection number had reached 1 million and would probably rise to 2 million in early January.
Yu Xinle, deputy director of the Zhejiang Health Commission, said the number of people who had sought medical treatment in the province's fever clinics during the week ended December 24 had reached the 400,000 level, about 14 times what had been normal. Yu said a total of 13,583 Covid patients were staying in hospitals – 243 of them designated as serious cases.
An internal document issued by the National Administration of Disease Control and Prevention was widely circulated on the internet in China, saying that about 248 million people, or 17.6% of the 1.4 billion population, had been infected between December 1 and 20. It said more than half of the people in Beijing and Sichuan province had tested positive.
These figures were inconsistent with those of the National Health Commission, which said the country had only 1,698 cases last Friday. The commission said on Sunday it would stop reporting the number of daily infections. It said on Monday that China would resume quarantine-free travel for all incoming travelers and allow more people to travel overseas from January 8.
On Tuesday, the Japanese government said travelers from mainland China would be required to have a negative Covid-19 test upon arrival from Friday. It said those who tested positive would be required to quarantine for seven days.
It also said arrivals from China, Hong Kong and Macau would be limited to four airports: Narita, Haneda, Kansai International and Chubu. Some Hong Kong travel agencies have had to cancel their Japanese tours.
It is the first time Japan has tightened its borders since all foreign tourists were allowed to enter the country without restrictions in October. Before this, India and Italy's Milan had implemented similar measures.
Bloomberg said officials in Washington were having an internal discussion about whether the US should take new coronavirus precautions for people traveling from China.
Although Chinese media said funeral services in major cities had strained facilities over the past two weeks, it is unclear how many people had died in this epidemic wave. Some netizens speculated that China was attacked by both the highly infectious Omicron and the more pathogenic Delta strains.
Xu Wenbo, head of the National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention, said Tuesday that all the nine most common coronaviruses in China in this epidemic wave were Omicron strains. Xu said China had not identified any new mutant strains so far.
Jiao Yahui, director of the Bureau of Medical Administration of the National Health Commission, said Tuesday that the“white lung” symptom, which refers to the white spots shown on the x-rays of Covid patients's lungs, was caused by the Omicron, not the Delta or original strains. Jiao said a person should be called a“white lung” patient only if 70 to 80% of his lung's area on the x-rays turned white.
Gong Zilong, a doctor at the Fifth Hospital of Wuhan, said most of the Covid patients had no or mild symptoms while most serious cases were elderly or those with chronic diseases. Gong said he received 150 serious patients per day, only two or three of them had“white lungs.”
Zhang Li, a doctor at the Tongji University Affiliated Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, said 40% of“white lung” patients would die while the remaining would have complications or relapses.
Meanwhile, Chinese media reported that those who had recovered from the recent epidemic wave happily returned to shopping malls and tourist sites in Beijing this week. They said the recent traffic jams on roads and highways showed that the Chinese capital was gradually recovering from the epidemic.
The Hong Kong government said it would drop many of its remaining pandemic measures from Thursday, including the vaccine pass, PCR tests for international arrivals, outdoor gathering limit and quarantine for close contacts of infected people. It said people would no longer have to show their vaccination records before entering restaurants, bars and cinemas.
Newspapers said shops and restaurants in Hong Kong were hiring more staff as they expected more mainland tourists would visit the city in January.
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