Faced with the reopening of Chinese borders, some want to tighten the screw.
The United States is considering imposing entry restrictions on travelers from China after the sharp rise in the number of Covid-19 cases, US officials said on Tuesday.
"The international community is increasingly concerned about the current outbreaks of Covid-19 in China and the lack of transparent data, including viral genomic sequence data, being reported," the US officials said, under cover of a statement. anonymity.
Tracking the “impossible” epidemic
Beijing has acknowledged that it is "impossible" to follow the evolution of the epidemic and has even stopped publishing daily data on the health situation since Sunday.
The official figures were increasingly criticized as their underestimation of cases of infection and deaths had become flagrant.
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Chinese hospitals saturated with Covid 19 patients
But it's the lack of genomic data that is causing the most concern overseas, making it "increasingly difficult for public health officials to ensure they'll be able to identify any new varying potential and to take prompt action to reduce the spread,” U.S. officials said.
Already measures in India, Japan and Malaysia
The United States “follows scientific data and the advice of public health experts, consults with its partners and considers taking similar measures (…) to protect the American people”, they added, recalling the concerns expressed by the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as measures adopted by Japan, India and Malaysia.
Japan will thus restore from Friday the mandatory PCR tests for travelers from mainland China.
China's easing of anti-Covid measures puts an end to the mass testing, lockdowns and long quarantines that have upended supply chains and disrupted trade relations with the rest of the world.
China's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that countries should maintain "scientific and appropriate" disease controls that "should not affect normal exchanges of people".
