After China relaxed its corona restrictions, the country’s infection rates are now rising sharply. Among other things, the USA and a few EU countries already set travel restrictions for those arriving from China, and this was not liked in Beijing.
19:14•Updated 19:27
Some Western countries reacted strongly to the spread of the coronavirus in China by loosening the country’s restrictions. In the past, for example, the USA, Italy and Great Britain imposed mandatory coronavirus tests on Chinese travelers arriving in the country. This week, Australia and Canada joined the countries demanding tests. Also Sweden announced that it will take (you switch to another service) to use the test force.
Beijing is not happy about travel restrictions.
– In our opinion, the travel restrictions imposed on China by certain countries have no scientific basis, representative of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mao Ning said at a daily news conference on Tuesday.
According to Ning, countries that have imposed travel restrictions are trying to use the corona restrictions in pursuit of political goals.
– We intend to implement countermeasures based on the principle of reciprocity, Ning threatened.
It is still unclear what such countermeasures might be. However, from Ning’s talk about “reciprocity”, one could judge that these could be related to traveling in some way.
At the end of last year, China relaxed its years of extremely strict corona restrictions. This has led to a rapid increase in the number of corona infections, when in a country of almost one and a half billion people, those who are not yet sick are now getting infected.
The World Health Organization WHO is asking China for an up-to-date picture of the progress of the pandemic, but so far the numbers reported by China seem low: last Friday, China reported about 5,000 new corona infections and one death caused by the corona virus.
The EU offers surplus vaccines to China
For example, in France, starting Wednesday, everyone arriving from China must present a negative coronavirus test taken within the previous 48 hours. In addition, you may be subject to a random coronavirus test at airports.
– We act as required by our role as a board; we protect the French, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne stated on Tuesday to the country’s public broadcasting company.
However, there is no unified opinion in Europe about travel restrictions. In Finland, for example, the need for tests has been seen, because according to THL, the spread of new virus variants has not been prevented with such measures in the past.
The EU countries are negotiating for a while on common lines regarding the matter. On Tuesday evening, the European Commission said that the majority of member states would like corona tests for travelers coming from China before leaving. The actual decisions on the actions should be made on Wednesday.
However, the EU has offered China a helping hand in handling the corona situation. On Tuesday, a representative of the European Commission Dana Spinant stated that the EU had already offered China corona vaccines months ago, and reiterated that the offer is still valid.
Several member states of the Union have large surpluses of different mRNA corona vaccines, the effectiveness of which seems to be better than the Chinese corona vaccines based on the inactivated virus.
According to The Time Magazine (You will be transferred to another service) China has had challenges, especially in vaccinating the older population. Based on the 2020 census, there are approximately 191 million people over the age of 65 in the country, which is a huge number of people.
When the corona restrictions began to be lifted at the end of last year, the country’s administration started a rapid campaign to vaccinate people over 60 years old in order to avoid a healthcare crisis if the virus spreads. The authorities who went door-to-door even offered money in exchange for taking the corona vaccination.
China’s older population has been skeptical of vaccines, citing, among other things, stories of serious side effects. According to Chinese official sources, the proportion of people aged 60 and over in China who received two coronavirus vaccines was around 86.4 percent at the beginning of November.
The story was updated on January 3, 2023 at 7:22 p.m. Information was added to the story that the majority of EU countries would like to introduce corona testing for those arriving from China.
Sources: AFP, AP, Reuters