U.S. Will Require Covid Tests For Travelers From China Amid Surge In Cases

The U.S. government will require all air travelers from China to submit a negative Covid-19 test before being admitted into the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday, citing a rise in cases in China as the country lifts its strict pandemic mitigation rules—and China’s lack of transparency in reporting new infections.

1 million. That’s the number of new daily Covid-19 cases in China, according to an estimate from the British health analytics firm Airfinity. While China reported just three new Covid-19 deaths on Tuesday and one Monday, Airfinity estimates the country is facing more than 5,000 deaths daily. Privately, Chinese health officials estimated that 37 million people may have been infected on a single day last week, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing minutes from an internal meeting of China’s National Health Commission held last Wednesday, a figure that shatters the previous record of 4 million new cases a day set in January 2022.

The CDC announcement comes as other countries have also implemented new precautions to prevent the spread of Covid-19 from China. Japan on Monday announced it would also require negative testing from travelers from China, citing “great discrepancies” in its reporting on Covid-19 cases. Italy is also requiring tests for all incoming travelers from China after finding that half of all travelers arriving in Milan from China on a pair of recent flights tested positive for Covid-19, Italian health officials said Wednesday.