Covid travel curbs against Chinese visitors ‘discriminatory’: state media
CHINESE state media said that Covid-19 testing requirements imposed by several places around the world in response to a surging wave of infections in the second-largest economy were “discriminatory”, in the clearest pushback yet against restrictions that are slowing down China’s reopening.
After three years of keeping its borders all but shut and imposing a strict regime of lockdowns and relentless testing, China abruptly reversed course towards living with the virus on Dec 7. A wave of infections then erupted across the country.
Some nations have been taken aback by the scale of China’s outbreak and expressed scepticism over Beijing’s Covid statistics. The United States, South Korea, India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan have imposed Covid tests for travellers from China.
Chinese state-run tabloid Global Times said on Thursday (Dec 29): “The real intention is to sabotage China’s three years of Covid-19 control efforts and attack the country’s system.” It called the restrictions “unfounded” and “discriminatory”.
China will stop requiring inbound travellers to go into quarantine from Jan 8, but it will still need visitors to produce a negative PCR test result within 48 hours of their departure.
Italy on Thursday urged the rest of the European Union to follow its lead on testing arrivals from China for Covid, but France, Germany and Portugal have said they saw no need for new restrictions. Meanwhile, Austria has stressed the economic benefits of the return of Chinese tourists to Europe.
BT in your inbox
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
Before the pandemic, global spending by Chinese visitors was worth more than US$250 billion a year.
The US has raised concerns about potential mutations of the virus as it sweeps through the world’s most populous country. The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention said it was considering sampling wastewater from international aircraft to track any emerging new variants.
The US also questioned China’s data transparency. China, which has 1.4 billion people, reported one new Covid death on Thursday – the same as the day before. The numbers do not match the figures seen in other countries after they reopened.
SEE ALSO
Since the pandemic began, China has reported an official Covid death toll of 5,247. In comparison, the US has reported more than one million deaths while Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, a city of 7.4 million, has announced more than 11,000 deaths.
UK-based health data firm Airfinity said on Thursday that around 9,000 people in China are probably dying each day from Covid. Cumulative deaths in China since Dec 1 have likely reached 100,000, with infections totalling 18.6 million, it added.
Airfinity expected China’s Covid infections to reach their first peak on Jan 13, with 3.7 million cases a day.
‘Excess mortality’
China’s chief epidemiologist, Wu Zunyou, said on Thursday that a team at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention planned to assess fatalities differently. The team will measure the difference between the number of deaths in the current wave of infections and the number of deaths expected had the epidemic never happened. By calculating the “excess mortality”, China will be able to work out what could have been potentially underestimated, he noted.
China has said that it counted only deaths of Covid patients caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure as Covid-related.
The relatively low death count is also inconsistent with the surging demand reported by funeral parlours in several Chinese cities.
The lifting of restrictions, after widespread protests against them in November, has overwhelmed hospitals and funeral homes across the country. Scenes of people on intravenous drips by the roadside and lines of hearses outside crematoria have been fuelling public concern.
Health experts said that China has been caught ill-prepared by the abrupt U-turn in policies long championed by President Xi Jinping.
In December, tenders put out by hospitals for key medical equipment such as ventilators and patient monitors were two to three times higher than in previous months, based on a Reuters review, suggesting that hospitals across the country were scrambling to plug shortages.
Economic woes
The world’s second-largest economy is expected to slow down further in the near term as factory workers and shoppers fall ill. Some economists predicted a strong bounce back from a low base next year, but concerns linger that some of the damage caused by three years of restrictions could be long-term.
Consumers may need time to recover their confidence and spending appetite after losing income during lockdowns, while the private sector may have used its expansion funds to cover losses incurred due to the restrictions.
Heavily-indebted China will also face slowing demand in its main export markets, while its massive property sector is licking its wounds after a series of defaults.
China’s factory activity most likely cooled in December as rising infections began to affect production lines, a Reuters poll showed on Friday. REUTERS
Share with us your feedback on BT's products and services
