American officials expressed deep concerns about China's lack of transparency surrounding the most recent surge of cases, particularly the absence of genome sequencing information that could help detect new strains of the virus.
"We know these measures will not eliminate all risk or completely prevent people who are infected from entering the United States," a federal health official said. Nonetheless, "taken together they will help limit the number of infected people and provide us an early warning about new variants."
Other countries quickly followed, spurred by the same fears of new variants. Japan, Australia, South Korea and the United Kingdom all imposed testing requirements on arrivals from China. Some EU nations, including France and Italy, took the same decisions independently. The bloc will meet on Wednesday to decide on a coordinated policy.
However, the variant now driving the wave in China – predominantly the BF.7 variant of Omicron – has been circulating in the populations of many of these countries for much of the past year. The combination of high rates of vaccination and prior infection mean many of these countries have a degree of "hybrid immunity" to the variant circulating in China, according to Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia.
"At a global scale, this variant does not appear to have any growth advantage against other variants and is in decline globally," Hunter told the Science Media Center.
Professor Francois Balloux, director of the Genetics Institute at University College London, told CNN that, given China's relatively low levels of prior infection and vaccination compared to other nations, "there will probably be little pressure on the virus to evolve" in the immediate future.
Some government officials also doubted that the rush to impose restrictions on Chinese travelers would make other countries safer. Australia's Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly revealed that the country's decision was made despite his advice that it wasn't necessary.
"Based on available information, and in the absence of a specific threat from a variant with increased pathogenicity and immune escape, I do not believe that there is sufficient public health rationale to impose any restriction or additional requirements on travelers from China," Kelly wrote in a letter dated December 31, and published on the government website on Tuesday.
While many governments may be taking a "better safe than sorry" approach, there are fears that these targeted restrictions could stoke racism and xenophobia, in the absence of clear evidence of their effectiveness.
"I don't see any convincing reason to justify this move," said Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. "So far we don't have any evidence supporting whether there are indeed such variants emerging in mainland China." He added that other countries, like Australia, are "swimming in Covid," but don't face the same restrictions.
Meanwhile, the recent wave may already have peaked in some of China's cities. A study published last week in the Frontiers of Medicine journal said mathematical modeling predicted the latest wave of infections would pass through China's major cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, by the end of 2022.
But, while some cities may have some temporary respite, rural areas are expected to be hit hard by the virus soon.
The Lunar New Year beckons. For many, the week-long holiday later in January is the chance to reunite with family members for the first time since the pandemic began. But hundreds of millions of people traveling across the country to celebrate – and the spike this is likely to cause – may test just how prepared China is for life after zero-Covid.
IN OTHER NEWS
- While the world waits to see whether a "China variant" materializes, the US Centers Disease Control and Prevention warned Friday of a new Omicron strain taking hold in large parts of America: XBB.1.5. Several new BQ variants had looked set to edge out the dominant BA.5 strain, but now the CDC's variant dashboard showed that XBB.1.5 could soon sweep the field. The CDC estimates that XBB.1.5 has more than doubled its share of Covid infections each week of the last four, rising from about 4% to 41% of new infections over the month of December. In the Northeast, the CDC estimates it is causing 75% of new cases. "For a few months now, we haven't seen a variant that's taken off at that speed," said Pavitra Roychoundhury, director of Covid-19 sequencing at the University of Washington School of Medicine's virology lab.
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