The Biden administration is intending to halt requiring negative COVID-19 tests from passengers traveling from China, a senior administration official confirmed Tuesday, terminating restriction authorities revived some two months ago. Officials are scheduling to end the requirement on Friday, a source familiar with the decision said.
In December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that it planned to continue requiring travelers to confirm they had tested negative for the virus before flying to the U.S. from China, Hong Kong, and Macau. That had come in the wake of the country loosening its so-called “zero COVID” policy, leading to a wave in cases.
At the time, the CDC insisted Americans “reconsider travel” to China over reports that the healthcare system there had been overcome. They also build up efforts to series tests from volunteers on coming flights from China, in response to fears that a new variant could occur from the huge tide of infections across the country.
Since then, authorities in China have claimed victory over the pandemic, state media reported last month. Many nations have also been driven to wind down their restrictions on arriving Chinese travelers, from Japan to Italy.
Variants sequenced and reported by Chinese health authorities and scientists have been all descendants of Omicron variants, similar to those noticed abroad. The Biden administration now has evidence that COVID-19 cases and deaths are declining in China, sources familiar with the move said, and also has a better understanding of the surge.
The CDC’s airport management has also informed sequencing a handful of COVID-19 cases in arriving global travelers from China, according to data posted to the GISAID database. All have been Omicron variants. The airport management effort will resume scrutinizing flights from China among other countries, sources said.
Federal health officials have supported their determination to demand negative COVID-19 tests on reaching international travelers. However, officials admitted it would not control all cases from entering the country.
A CDC study publicized last month studying data from the original U.S. testing requirement, which involved all arriving international travelers, suggested it could halve the number of COVID-19 cases arriving in the country.
Certainly, pre-departure testing is leaky and won’t prevent all new variants coming into the U.S. that we’re trying to slow transmission there.”
Henry Walke-told a panel of the agency’s advisers in January.
