Lunar New Year: US must impose rigorous regulation on visitors as China's travel restriction ease: Report
4 min read . Updated: 23 Jan 2023, 06:01 AM IST
Premium- As per the China's Ministry of Transport, it is estimated that over 2 billion passenger trips will take place during the 40-day Lunar New Year season.
- People across the country will be travelling domestically and abroad for the first time without travel restrictions since the start of the pandemic over three years ago.
The Chinese government's decision to lift travel restrictions which was announced 8 January coincided with the start of the Lunar New Year, which was marked on Sunday.
As the restrictions have eased, huge travel rush is expected. Amid rush, stringent measures must be put in place by the US to protect its borders from new covid, a report by The Washington Post has said.
People wishing to enter the United States from China or having been in China two to three weeks prior, regardless of passport nationality and regardless of the visit's purpose (pleasure or business), must present a negative PCR test taken no later than three days before flight departure, The Washington Post advised.
In addition, the US need its own testing controls at our borders. Thus, upon arrival and before immigration, all such people must take a test. A positive test will result in non-admittance to the United States. A fee should be included in tickets from China to pay for the increased vigilance, added the Washington Post.
There are political ramifications -- the end of the Biden presidency -- if covid border controls are weak and a new wave of coronavirus arrives from China.
On 20 January, data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is the most transmissible Covid-19 subvariant so far, accounted for almost of the coronavirus cases in the US.
CDC said XBB.1.5 variant is estimated to have accounted for 49.1 percent of coronavirus cases in the US in the week ended 21 January, which is higher than 37.2 percent it estimated last week. The XBB.1.5 strain is a relative of the Omicron XBB variant, which is a recombinant of the Omicron BA.2.10.1 and BA.2.75 subvariants. Combined, XBB and XBB.1.5 make up 44 per cent of cases in the US
As per the China's Ministry of Transport, it is estimated that over 2 billion passenger trips will take place during the 40-day Lunar New Year season.
People across the country will be travelling domestically and abroad for the first time without travel restrictions since the start of the pandemic over three years ago.
As per the latest updates, China said that its Covid-related death toll topped more than 12,600 in the week before the Lunar New Year holiday, however, a top health official suggested more than 1.1 billion people had been infected, as reported by Bloomberg.
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As per Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 12,658 Covid-linked deaths at hospitals between January 13-19. A week earlier, the country reported 59,938 such deaths for the period December 8-January 12.
Moreover, a prominent government scientist said on Saturday that the possibility of a big COVID-19 rebound in China over the next two or three months is remote as 80% of people have been infected.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported on Sunday that more than 26 million passenger trips were taken on the eve of the Lunar New Year.
That is only half of the number of travellers from the same day in 2019, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, but 50.8 per cent higher than 2022, it said.
As of Friday, China's transport system had handled over 560 million passenger trips in the first 15 days of the 40-day ongoing Spring Festival travel rush via rail, highway, water, and air, up 47.9 per cent from the same period last year, according to CCTV.
Moreover, the disclosure by China that recent covid-19 deaths are 60,000 and not 37 is a reminder of the way China withheld critical information in 2019 and 2020, leading to the pandemic, reported The Washington Post.
China revised the official covid outbreak death toll to 60,000, up from 37 on January 15. Notably, eight in 10 people in China have now been infected with Covid-19, a prominent government scientist has claimed, reported CNN.
Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist of China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Saturday - the eve of the Lunar New Year - that the present "wave of epidemic has already infected about 80 per cent of the people" in the country of 1.4 billion people.
Nearly 60,000 people with Covid died in Chinese hospitals between December 8 and January 12 after China abruptly scraped its "zero-Covid" policies, according to government data.
The Chinese leader recently defended his zero-Covid policy which was lifted last month after crippling the economy and sparking nationwide protests and said that it had been "the right choice." Xi Jinping had said that he was primarily concerned about rural areas and rural residents after the country adjusted its Covid-19 response measures, as per state news agency Xinhua reported.
However, the World Health Organization's executive director for health emergencies Mike Ryan suggested earlier this month that the numbers released by China "under-represent the true impact of the disease" in terms of hospital and ICU admissions, as well as deaths.
According to an internal estimate from the nation's top health officials, in the first 20 days of December, almost 250 million people in China may have caught Covid. If correct, the estimate - which CNN cannot independently confirm - would account for roughly 18 per cent of China's population.
(With inputs from ANI)
