War of words erupts over whether Australia should place restrictions on Covid-stricken China

Doctors and academics have claimed it’s racist to suggest Chinese visitors pose a huge Covid risk to Victoria and Australia should join other nations in implementing travel bans.

Passengers wear protective clothing before boarding a China Southern Airlines flight in France, where restrictions on Chinese travellers have just been announced. Picture: AFP

More doctors have piled on Victoria’s Australian Medical Association president Roderick McRae for his belief that Chinese visitors to the state pose a huge Covid risk and will further stress our health system if restrictions are not placed on their arrival at Melbourne Aiport.

Melbourne doctor Kate Gregorevic took to Twitter on Saturday to say “I absolutely do not stand” with Dr McRae’s opinion and wanted the AMA to release a statement saying it ”does not support labelling people from an ethnic group or country as a threat”.

Other medical professionals and academics also reacted in anger, calling Dr McRae’s views “appalling”, “stinking with racism” and “reprehensible”, with some saying it was beliefs like those expressed by the AMA chief that had led to their departure from the AMA.

The outrage followed a tweet from top Melbourne doctor and past AMA vice president Stephen Parnis on Friday, slamming Dr McRae’s China Covid comments as “crude, inflammatory” and ones he would expect “from an extremist politician, not a current state AMA leader”.

Dr McRae had earlier warned Australia should prepare for an avalanche of Covid cases and needed to view “every jet that comes into Tullamarine from China (as) just riddled with Covid-19”.

Travellers at Hong Kong International Airport as authorities around the world impose or consider curbig travellers from China. Picture: Getty Images

He went on to question: “Do want to fill our hospitals with tourists from China coming to see the Australian Open, or do we want to look after Victorians who have already got deferred care, larger cancers in their bodies?”

It comes as France and the United Kingdom join Spain and Italy in requiring travellers arriving from China to provide a negative Covid test result before boarding flights.

The US will impose mandatory tests on travellers from China from January 5 and India and Japan have already introduced border restrictions.

Australia to date has not introduced any restrictions on Chinese visitors to the country.

Dr Parnis tweeted on Friday afternoon that Victoria’s response to Covid in December 2022, needed “of necessity”, to be very different to that of early 2020.

Victorian Covid cases have dropped by more than 30 per cent in welcome news for the state as it prepares to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

The Victorian Department of Health on Friday said there were 16,568 new Covid cases reported in Victoria this week, a decrease of 31.4 per cent on the week before, but warned this was likely linked to reduced reporting over the holiday period.

There were 745 Covid patients in Victorian hospitals, with 44 in intensive care, Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said in his weekly report.

“Covid hospitalisations edged higher in the past week, having stabilised earlier in December,” he said.

And 69 Victorian Covid patients died during the week; an average of 10 people a day.

There had been a 47.5 per cent increase in the number of daily Covid deaths in the past month when compared to the previous month, Professor Sutton said.

Several countries have placed restrictions on Chinese travellers but not Australia. Picture: Getty Images

“The genomic outlook is rapidly changing and is difficult to predict with evidence of newer subvariants, in particular XBF, out-competing other subvariants over several weeks. This has contributed to hospitalisations, putting continued demand on the health system,” he said.

“Social gatherings and events over the holiday period have added to the transmission risk . .

the risk of Covid infection can increase through large family and social gatherings. It is important to consider older family and friends and those who may be more vulnerable to severe Covid illness.”

It comes as fears grow over the risk Chinese visitors may pose to the state over summer.

Australia’s leading infectious disease expert on Thursday called on the federal government to introduce restrictions on Chinese travellers amid concerns deadly new Covid variants could be released from the country.

Covid testing measures were scrapped for travellers entering Australia in early 2022 and are now only used in high-risk medical or aged care environments.

“Both Australia and China are experiencing a lot of Covid cases right now with similar subvariants, so letting people with the same set variant into Australia from China doesn’t add much to our risk,” Professor Robert Booy from the University of Sydney said.

“However, given that so very many people are getting infected every day in China, there is a real risk that a new subvariant and perhaps even a new variant could arise in China.

“We have an opportunity to screen people coming from China by their symptoms and by excluding people who have respiratory symptoms.”