U.S. to Ease Covid Testing Requirements for Travelers From China, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 7, 2023.
Decision comes amid tense relations between the world’s two major powers
The U.S. government is planning to lift Covid-19 testing requirements on travelers from China on Friday, amid a decline in cases there following a winter surge, according to people familiar with the matter.
Those traveling to the U.S. from mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau were previously required to submit a negative Covid test before departure following a Biden administration order that went into effect on Jan. 5. At the time, U.S. officials said the restrictions were necessary because of a deadly wave of infections across China and cited a lack of transparency from Beijing about the scale of the surge or specific variants.
While Biden administration officials have said the travel order was issued for public-health reasons, the decision to reverse it comes amid deteriorating relations between Washington and Beijing after the U.S. shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon last month. In recent weeks, the U.S. has also sharply warned China against supplying arms and ammunition to Russia in its war with Ukraine.
The decision to ease Covid-testing requirements was earlier reported by the Washington Post.
The administration will continue to monitor Covid cases in China and conduct voluntary genomic surveillance at U.S. airports, the people familiar with the testing reversal said. They added that the U.S. government has evidence that cases, hospitalizations and deaths are declining in China and that better information is available about the country’s surge, which came after officials in Beijing in December relaxed so-called zero-Covid controls that had been in place for most of the pandemic.
Earlier this year, President Biden voiced concern that China was underreporting Covid-related deaths and said Beijing was “very sensitive” to suggestions that its government had not been forthcoming. The World Health Organization also accused Chinese officials of underrepresenting data on several fronts amid reports of crowded hospitals and inundated crematoria.
The U.S. said China provided limited surveillance data regarding the surge and declined offers from Washington to provide additional vaccines.
Mr. Biden and his administration have also pressed China for more transparency around the origins of Covid-19. But the White House has said there is no consensus within the U.S. government over the origins of the virus, despite the disclosure of an Energy Department assessment that the pandemic most likely originated with a leak from a Chinese lab, although the agency made the judgment with “low confidence.”
The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic is scheduled to hold its first hearing Wednesday on Covid -19’s origins, featuring witnesses who have said the virus might have leaked from a lab.