Biden officials said travelers to the U.S. from China, Hong Kong and Macau will be required as of Jan. 5 to get a PCR or rapid test monitored by a healthcare provider no more than two days before departure. Airlines must confirm the negative test before passengers board.
The U.S. is following Japan, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia and Italy in imposing testing mandates for Chinese visitors. The apparent concern is that the virus’s untrammeled spread in China after government officials lifted zero-Covid restrictions may increase the risk that more lethal or transmissible variants emerge.
This is possible, but more transmissible variants that evade the antibody response from vaccines and prior infection continue to emerge in the U.S. and other countries too. It’s also possible that China’s lower natural immunity reduces the selective evolutionary pressures that give rise to more immune-evasive and transmissible variants.
U.S. officials are rightly concerned that China may be slow to identify a new dangerous variant and share that information with the world. It took China weeks after the novel coronavirus began spreading in Wuhan to confirm human-to-human transmission.
Beijing continues to deny Western scientists access to records needed to determine whether the virus originated from a lab.
While the Biden testing requirement punishes China for its lack of transparency, it’s unlikely to stop a more pathogenic variant from spreading to the U.S. PCR tests usually take a few days to get results.
On the other hand, rapid tests are much less sensitive, which is why public-health officials advise repeat daily testing.
Travel restrictions have been ineffective throughout the pandemic at stopping new variants. Donald Trump imposed a travel ban on China on Jan. 31, 2020, but the virus was already spreading in Europe and likely in the U.S. A variant that ran rampant through New York came from Europe.
After Omicron was discovered in South Africa in November 2021, the U.S. imposed travel restrictions on noncitizens from eight African countries. But many cases of the variant had already been confirmed in Europe, Israel, Australia and Hong Kong. A recent study found that Omicron’s ancestors were spreading across Africa as early as the summer.
The Administration’s testing mandate for Chinese travelers won’t take effect for another week, by which time tens and perhaps even hundreds of millions more Chinese will be infected, some of whom will already have flown to the U.S. or other countries.
A Shanghai hospital predicted that half of the city’s 25 million residents will be infected by the end of this week.
The Administration is trying to show it’s doing something in case fears of a more dangerous variant are realized. But if it wants to do something that could make a real difference, how about accelerating treatments that can’t be defeated by new variants such as our current class of monoclonal antibodies?
The Wall Street Journal
More Coverage
Trump, aiming at Iran, puts a squeeze on Iraq
The Trump administration has revoked a sanctions waiver that allowed Iraq to buy gas and electricity from Iran, intensifying an anti-nuclear campaign against Tehran while disrupting an ally.
Sectarian killings along Syria’s coast spiral into crisis
Reports of a wave of killings in Syria’s coastal region have sparked an international outcry in the most serious crisis yet for the war-torn country’s new government.
The Biden Administration on Wednesday imposed new Covid testing requirements for travelers from China, and this is better understood as political inoculation than virus protection for Americans.