Premium Content

US to impose mandatory COVID-19 tests for travelers from China

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

CHICAGO: The United States will impose mandatory COVID-19 tests on travellers from China, US health officials said on Wednesday, joining India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan in taking new measures after Beijing’s decision to lift stringent zero-COVID policies.

The officials told reporters that beginning on Jan 5, all air passengers 2 years old and older will require a negative result from a test no more than two days before departure from China, Hong Kong or Macao.

Passengers who test positive more than 10 days before a flight can provide documentation of recovery in lieu of the negative test result, the federal officials said.

They attributed the change in policy to the lack of information on variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and concerns that the increased number of COVID cases in China could result in the development of new variants of the virus.

The United States also is expanding its voluntary genomic sequencing programme at airports, adding Seattle and Los Angeles to the program. That brings the total number of airports gathering information from positive tests to seven.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Videos