Beijing pressured on Covid transparency

The government is asking China to provide more transparent information with the rest of the world on its unfolding Covid outbreak.

Health Minister Mark Butler. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Brenton Edwards

The government is asking China to provide more transparent information with the rest of the world on its unfolding Covid outbreak, including the real time ­uploading of their genomic sequencing of Covid cases.

Health Minister Mark Butler said he had requested the Health Department to “reach out to their equivalents in China to stress our view that it would be valuable for information to be shared more comprehensively by China”.

“This is what governments, including Australia, are calling for,” Mr Butler said.

He said the lack of clarity from China was the reason why the government had moved to impose new Covid-19 requirements on passengers travelling on flights from China to Australia.

The new regime means travellers must return a negative Covid test within 48 hours prior to their departure.

Mr Butler dismissed suggestions that, in imposing the new rules, he had contradicted advice from Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly. He argued the government had instead implemented all of the recommendations made by Professor Kelly.

“The four recommendations from the Chief Medical Officer … are all being implemented,” he said. “To look at the feasibility of wastewater testing from aeroplanes arriving from China … We also accepted the recommendation from the CMO to look at strengthening community wastewater testing.”

Professor Kelly also proposed implementing a “program of voluntary sampling of incoming travellers on arrival” and “enhancing national consistency in (the) follow-up of people who test positive to Covid-19 and have a history of overseas travel in the preceding 14 days”.

Flights from China to Australia began complying with new health rules on Thursday and Mr Butler said the Home Affairs Department had informed him that there were “no issues identified with compliance of those measures”. He said the requirement for negative tests was a “widely shared position around the rest of the world”.

The decision to impose testing requirements on those travelling from China to Australia, including Australian citizens, has been questioned by the federal Coalition because Professor Kelly clearly opposed such an approach in his advice.

“I do not believe that there is a sufficient public health rationale for imposing restrictions on travellers from China or any other country,” Professor Kelly said.

After consulting with his state and territory counterparts, Professor Kelly also concluded that “there is strong consensus that implementation of any restrictions to travel from China at this time would be inconsistent with the current national approach to the management of Covid-19 and disproportionate to the risk”.

Mr Butler said the government was hoping the new measures would be temporary and argued they were not acting as a barrier to travel to Australia.