New COVID-19 testing requirements for people traveling from China
As we all know by now, the COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus, is a highly contagious respiratory illness that was first identified in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 and has since spread to affect people all over the world, causing a global pandemic, with the World Health Organization declaring it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in January 2020.
Since then, the situation with COVID-19 appears to have stabilized as people developed an immune response to the virus, but new concerns arose after the recent surge of COVID-19 cases in China, prompting officials to take the necessary measures in an effort to keep infections from spreading to our country.
Officials were worried that China was not sharing adequate and transparent information about the COVID-19 data, and as it relaxed its zero-COVID policy, enabling its citizens to travel despite an increase in reported cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced yesterday new COVID-19 testing requirements that will apply to those traveling to the U.S. from China.
Starting next year, on January 5, people older than 2 years old entering our country from China would have to provide a negative COVID-19 test taken no longer than two days before their flight, regardless of their nationality and vaccination status.
“Variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus continue to emerge in countries around the world. However, reduced testing and case reporting in the PRC and minimal sharing of viral genomic sequence data could delay the identification of new variants of concern if they arise. Pre-departure testing and the requirement to show a negative test result has been shown to decrease the number of infected passengers boarding airplanes, and it will help to slow the spread of the virus as we work to identify and understand any potential new variants that may emerge,” the CDC said in a press release.
