More than a dozen countries have imposed Covid tests on passengers arriving from China in recent days, worrying about the lack of transparency in the number of infections and fearing the appearance of new variants. As China grapples with an unprecedented wave of cases, Beijing has strongly condemned this injunction: “Some countries have put in place entry restrictions aimed only at Chinese travellers. This has no scientific basis and some practices are unacceptable”castigated a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mao Ning.
China can “take countermeasures, according to the principle of reciprocity”she warned.
These statements come almost a month after China’s surprise lifting of its health restrictions on December 7, a decision which has since led to an influx of patients in hospitals and victims of Covid-19 in crematoriums. From Sunday, Beijing will no longer impose quarantine on people arriving from abroad, but continues to request a negative PCR test from travelers and has not issued tourist visas for almost three years.
The presentation before boarding of a negative Covid-19 screening test of less than forty-eight hours will become compulsory on January 5 for travelers over 11 years old wishing to travel to France from China, can we read in a decree released Saturday, December 31 at Official newspaper.
“We want to make sure that there are no new variants”
“I think we are in our role by protecting the French and asking for tests”reacted Tuesday the French Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, questioned on Franceinfo. “We will continue to do so. »
“My government is playing its part by protecting the French and asking for tests. […] We do this in accordance with the rules of the World Health Organization and we will continue to do so. […] Our objective, and I think that all scientists agree on this point, is really to be able to monitor the evolution of the epidemic. »
Mme Borne recalled that, since Sunday, passengers boarding a flight from China to France “undertook to accept a test on arrival, a test which is also subject, when it is positive, to sequencing. This allows us to have data on the evolution of the virus. We obviously want to make sure that there are no new variants”.
“More than 100 ambulances arrive at the hospital every day”
China is currently facing its largest outbreak of cases. In Shanghai in particular, two thirds of the inhabitants could have had Covid-19 in recent weeks, according to a senior official of one of the main hospitals in the city. The economic capital of China, the city of 25 million inhabitants had been placed under strict confinement for two months from April, when 600,000 inhabitants were infected. Many of them had been taken to quarantine centres. Now the Omicron variant is spreading there very quickly.
“Currently, the epidemic in Shanghai is very widespread and it could have affected 70% of the population, that is to say 20 to 30 times more” than during the previous outbreak in the spring of 2022, Chen Erzhen, vice president of Ruijin Hospital, told a blog affiliated with the People’s Daily. Also a member of Shanghai’s Covid-19 expert council, he said his hospital was receiving 1,600 emergency admissions per day – double the period before the restrictions were lifted – 80% of which were patients. of Covid-19. According to Dr. Chen, “more than 100 ambulances arrive at the hospital every day”and half of emergency patients are over the age of 65, and therefore more vulnerable.
In other major Chinese cities, such as Beijing, Tianjin (North), Chongqing (South-West) and Canton (South), health authorities believe that the peak has already passed. But this wave of Covid-19 in big cities is expected to soon reach rural areas of China, where health services are less provided.
strong increase expected in the countryside
As millions of residents will return to their home provinces to celebrate the Lunar New Year from January 21, a senior National Health Commission (NHC) official, Jiao Yahui, acknowledged in a television interview. state CCTV, Monday, that this expected sharp rise in the countryside represented a “tremendous challenge”.
“What worries us the most is that for the past three years, no one has returned to their province for the Lunar New Year, but this year it is finally possible. As a result, there could be a rebound in trips by city dwellers to the countryside to visit relatives, which raises our concern for the outbreak in rural areas. »
She also admitted that hospital emergency departments were under pressure and promised that the authorities would coordinate resources to allow patients in the most remote areas to be treated.