Starting next week, the officials of Joe Biden's administration have made it compulsory for those coming from China to undergo Covid-19 vaccine tests as the virus infection rate surges.
China's covid cases have been on the rise since they started allowing some citizen movements, which has raised concerns among other nations. According to the federal government, the way China has handled its covid cases has been tagged "lack of adequate and transparent epidemiological and viral genomic sequence data being reported from the PRC."
Starting from the 5th of January 2023, those coming from the Asian country will be required to show a covid 19 vaccine test showing negative. This test must have been done two days before traveling to the US. Travelers who tested positive for the covid 19 tests must present official documentation of their recovery process from a certified medical practitioner.
In a press conference, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said they need to implement this new rule to ensure that the United States is protected from another wave of covid cases. China's covid cases have been the worst, recording as high as 37 million cases.
"These data are critical to monitor the case surge effectively and decrease the chance for entry of a novel variant of concern. CDC will continue to monitor the situation and adjust our approach as necessary," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The United States isn't the only country taking steps to ensure their country is protected from any surge in covid cases. Other countries, such as Japan, have also made a new rule requiring travelers from China to present a negative covid 19 test result.
China Witness Huge Surge In Covid Cases
China's covid cases have witnessed a huge increase in the number of people contracting the deadly virus. As many as 37 million people have contracted the virus daily in China.
To make things even worse, some media in the United States have alleged that China is underreporting the amount of covid cases in the country. They predict that the Asian country is experiencing more than 37 million covid cases per day. Despite the huge surge, the United States is yet to prohibit people coming from China from coming into the country.
The government of China, the National Health Commission, believes that as many as 287 million people have contracted the virus within the first 20 days of December 2022.
However, China's government might be hiding some delicate information as they reported only about 3,049 covid cases on Tuesday, while other independent organizations reported about 37 million. That's a huge difference between the data provided by the government of China and the one given by independent health organizations.
China no longer includes asymptomatic cases in its official numbers, making its daily infection toll a drastic undercount of the covid cases. However, international health organizations are against such behavior by the Chinese government.
"People who die of COVID die from many different (organ) systems’ failures, given the severity of infection. So limiting a diagnosis of death from COVID to someone with a COVID-positive test and respiratory failure will underestimate the true death toll associated with Covid," WHO’s Mike Ryan said at a press conference on Wednesday.