While Beijing castigated the demand for negative Covid tests for travelers from China, the United States responded by assuring that only science had guided this decision-making.
Washington’s requirement to present a negative Covid-19 test at the country’s borders for travelers coming from China is based “solely on science”, assured the spokesperson for American diplomacy on Tuesday.
“It’s an approach that is based only and solely on science,” Ned Price of the US State Department told reporters.
The statements came in reaction to those, earlier, of a spokesperson for Chinese diplomacy who had considered that the restrictions taken by a dozen countries were “unacceptable” and “devoid of scientific basis”.
From January 5 at 12:01 a.m. in Washington, “all air travelers aged 2 and over coming from China will be required to take a test no more than two days before departure”, regardless of their nationality or their vaccination status, announced on December 28 the American health authorities.
The fear of new variants
The United States has expressed particular concern that the rapid transmission of the virus in China will cause the emergence of new variants.
The measures “are based on public health concerns” due to “the explosion in the number of Covid-19 cases in China and the lack of adequate and transparent sequencing data from China”, Ned Price said on Tuesday.
The spokesman reiterated Washington’s offer to share its Covid vaccine doses with Beijing.
Negative results will need to be presented to airlines on departure, and PCR or antigen tests will be accepted, along with proof of having recovered from Covid-19 after testing positive more than 10 days before the flight.
This decision follows similar announcements from several countries, including Japan, India and Italy, which have also imposed compulsory tests on Chinese arrivals.
