The United States is considering the possibility of imposing restrictions on travelers from China, US authorities reported on Tuesday, after Beijing drastically relaxed its tough anti-Covid measures this month.
Infections have multiplied in China as the main pillars of its strict health policy have been dismantled, prompting US officials to express concerns about the possible emergence of new variants.
“The international community is increasingly concerned about the continuing outbreaks of covid-19 in China and the lack of transparent data, including viral genomic sequence data, reported” by China, the officials said.
Authorities in Beijing have admitted that it is “impossible” to trace the origin of the current outbreak and have suppressed the controversial count of infections, in addition to narrowing the criteria for calculating pandemic-related deaths.
But it is the lack of genomic data that has sparked concerns in other countries, making it “increasingly difficult for public health authorities to ensure that they can identify potential new variants and take prompt action to reduce their spread,” the US authorities said.
The United States “follows scientific data and the advice of public health experts, consults with its partners, and consider taking similar measures” to that of countries such as Japan and Malaysia, which have announced public health actions to deal with the spread of covid from China.
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The relaxation of the measures by Beijing closes the curtain on the ‘zero covid’ regime, with massive tests, confinements and long quarantines that have affected supply chains and shaken the commercial commitment of the second largest economy in the world.
China’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that countries should maintain “scientific and appropriate” controls on diseases that “should not affect normal personnel exchanges.”
China will report deaths and serious cases from covid every week or month
The Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council (Chinese Executive) declared this Tuesday that deaths and serious cases from covid in the country will be reported every week or every month, local media picked up in the last hours.
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The National Health Commission had declared this Monday that, as of January 8, the covid will cease to be a category A disease, the level of maximum danger and for whose containment the most severe measures are required, to become one of category B, which contemplates a more lax control, thus marking the end of the ‘zero covid’ policy that had been in force for almost three years.
After that date, the reports of deaths and serious cases due to the disease will become weekly and, “following the evolution of the pandemic”, they will become “monthly”, said the Joint Mechanism, which did not give more details about the conditions that will imply the change in frequency. Likewise, the parties will not notify the number of close contacts of those infected with covid nor will they distinguish between local and imported cases, contrary to what was indicated in the daily reports that China published from the beginning of the pandemic until last Saturday.
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EFE AND AFP
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