UK makes Covid negative test mandatory for arrivals from China

The United Kingdom has now made it mandatory for Chinese travellers to produce a negative Covid test before entering the country, starting from 5 January 2023. In response to worries that Beijing is suppressing information on the new variants of the Covid virus, PM Rishi Sunak took the dramatic action ofreintroducing these travel restrictions

He intervened just one day after health chiefs voted against checks, following high-level consultations with ministries and No. 10 officials.

Pre-departure testing, in Sunak's opinion, is now required due to a lack of credibility in Chinese infection data and vaccination protection. According to experts from Airfinity,a leading life science information and analytics company, 100,000 people have died and at least 18 million Chinese people have been sick this month alone. But, just a small number of cases have been documented, despite the closure of testing facilities by health officials. There are rising concerns that increase in Covid cases in Chinamay result in an aggressive new Covid-19 wave.

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Britain's action puts it in line with other nations that now require travellers from China to submit to Covid testing.

France made a late-night announcement on 4 Jan that it would demand travellers to present negative tests that are no older than 48 hours along with their flight credentials and will conduct arbitrary testing upon arrival.

(With inputs from agencies)

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