Stringent measures must be put in place by the US to protect its borders from new covid infections from China as the travel rush takes place around the Lunar New Year holiday period, reported The Washington Post.
China's Ministry of Transport estimates over 2 billion passenger trips will take place during the 40-day Lunar New Year season as people across the country will be travelling domestically and abroad for the first time without travel restrictions since the start of the pandemic over three years ago.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported on Sunday that more than 26 million passenger trips were taken on the eve of the Lunar New Year.
That is only half of the number of travellers from the same day in 2019, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, but 50.8 per cent higher than 2022, it said.
As of Friday, China's transport system had handled over 560 million passenger trips in the first 15 days of the 40-day ongoing Spring Festival travel rush via rail, highway, water, and air, up 47.9 per cent from the same period last year, according to CCTV.
Moreover, the disclosure by China that recent covid-19 deaths are 60,000 and not 37 is a reminder of the way China withheld critical information in 2019 and 2020, leading to the pandemic, reported The Washington Post.
China revised the official covid outbreak death toll to 60,000, up from 37 on January 15.
Stringent measures must be put in place now by the Departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, followed by an act of Congress.
People wishing to enter the United States from China or having been in China two to three weeks prior, regardless of passport nationality and regardless of the visit's purpose (pleasure or business), must present a negative PCR test taken no later than three days before flight departure, The Washington Post advised.
In addition, the US need its own testing controls at our borders. Thus, upon arrival and before immigration, all such people must take a test.
A positive test will result in non-admittance to the United States. A fee should be included in tickets from China to pay for the increased vigilance, added the Washington Post.
There are political ramifications -- the end of the Biden presidency -- if covid border controls are weak and a new wave of coronavirus arrives from China.
Notably, eight in 10 people in China have now been infected with Covid-19, a prominent government scientist has claimed, reported CNN.
Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist of China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Saturday - the eve of the Lunar New Year - that the present "wave of epidemic has already infected about 80 per cent of the people" in the country of 1.4 billion people.
Nearly 60,000 people with Covid died in Chinese hospitals between December 8 and January 12 after China abruptly scraped its "zero-Covid" policies, according to government data.
However, the World Health Organization's executive director for health emergencies Mike Ryan suggested earlier this month that the numbers released by China "under-represent the true impact of the disease" in terms of hospital and ICU admissions, as well as deaths.
According to an internal estimate from the nation's top health officials, in the first 20 days of December, almost 250 million people in China may have caught Covid. If correct, the estimate - which CNN cannot independently confirm - would account for roughly 18 per cent of China's population.
( With inputs from ANI )
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