If foreign actions against Chinese travelers are temporary actions in the short term, and do not constitute actual travel restrictions for most healthy travelers, what if the nucleic acid is checked?
China's policy of lifting international travel restrictions has become one of the topics of the game between China and foreign countries.
From January 8, China will abandon its travel policy in accordance with the epidemic management and open its doors to the outside world. At the same time, some countries in the United States, Japan, Europe and other places have also begun to set up some entry testing procedures for China and other travelers to these countries through China. China's Foreign Ministry, on the other hand, said it opposed politicizing the epidemic and said it would implement reciprocal measures for some countries. In this way, there is a diplomatic game between China and the outside world.
Some countries in the United States, Japan, Europe and other places mainly require the above-mentioned travelers to take nucleic acid tests before departure, and then take sampling tests after arriving at their destinations. The main basis is, of course, that China has just lifted the epidemic lockdown and there are many domestic infections, in particular: China is a world country with a large population and a large population going abroad. On the other hand, if foreign actions against Chinese travelers are temporary actions in the short term, and do not constitute actual travel restrictions for most healthy travelers, and China actually has the right to take reciprocal measures against the relevant countries, what if the nucleic acid is checked?
China and the world are one
China is the world's second largest economy closely related to the world economic supply chain, and the world's most populous country; At the same time, because China suddenly lifted the epidemic lockdown and opened the country, the exchanges between Chinese and foreign personnel will immediately show an explosive trend. These two points show that China and the world are one, which is also the basic starting point that China cannot lack when dealing with the domestic epidemic and opening up policy.
It is precisely for this reason that the World Health Organization, which is responsible for global affairs, has paid special attention to the epidemic in China. At the same time, according to information released by the agency, China does not seem to have much contact with the agency when it abandons its lockdown policy and there is a large number of inevitable infections in the country.
WHO has invited Chinese scientists to present detailed data on virus sequencing conducted in China at the Technical Advisory Group meeting on 3 January. In a subsequent statement to the meeting, WHO said the data provided by China was "based on more than 2000 genomes collected and sequenced from 1 December 2022." Analysis by the Chinese CDC shows that Omicron BA.5.2 and BF predominate, these variants are known and have been endemic in other countries, and no new variants have been reported by the Chinese CDC at present. ”
WHO also acknowledges that the above viral information "is consistent with the genomes of Chinese travelers submitted to the GISAID EpiCoV database by other countries" and that no new variants or mutations of known significance were found in the published sequence data.
However, WHO's repeated references in the above statement to China's genome "based on those collected and sequenced from 1 December 2022" imply that China has submitted too little information. WHO will continue to closely monitor the evolution of the virus in the People's Republic of China and globally, urging all countries to remain vigilant, surveillance and reporting sequences, and to conduct independent comparative analyses of different Omicron variants, including the severity of the disease they cause.
In addition, WHO specifically asked China to share its domestic data on hospital admissions, COVID deaths and vaccinations.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference on Wednesday that they were "concerned" about the surge in the number of new coronavirus infections in China.
"We continue to demand faster, regular, and reliable data on hospitalizations and deaths, as well as more comprehensive and real-time sequencing of the virus," he told a news conference in Geneva. ”
Dr Mike Ryan, WHO's Director of Emergencies, was more blunt at a press conference. "We believe that the data currently released from China underestimates the true impact of the disease, in terms of ICU admissions, especially in terms of deaths," he said. ”
In addition, the remarks come as the UN agency prepares to meet again with Chinese scientists on Thursday as part of a broader briefing by member states on the global coronavirus pandemic.
In response to all these developments, Du Yuping, an expert with a WHO work background in China, said: It is generally believed that China's large-scale epidemic will produce new mutations. China is asked to provide genetic sequencing data for the virus to see if there is a mutation, whether it will affect other countries and cause a new wave of epidemics, especially patient hospitalizations, ICU use, and deaths, which can measure the pathogenic capacity of the virus.
There is another piece of information that the author believes is also worth paying attention to: the United States was also specifically mentioned in the WHO statement on the new crown epidemic in China on January 3. Currently, WHO's Technical Advisory Group on Virus Evolution is also assessing the rapidly increasing proportion of the XBB.1.5 virus in the United States and other countries. An updated risk assessment of XBB.1.5 is ongoing.
The above-mentioned virus is spreading in the northeast of the United States and has spread to 25 countries around the world, and the WHO statement mentions this paragraph of the United States, indicating that WHO wants to put on a position and posture that all countries are equal to countries that are not right and do not matter, which shows that this agency is not only a professional group, but also shows diplomatic characteristics.
It can't stop China from opening its doors
Whether China's opening of the country will be smooth depends to a large extent on whether the virus will mutate in China after abandoning its epidemic prevention and control policies. As long as this situation does not occur, foreign travel testing measures against China are temporary, and China's opening of the country this round is basically unstoppable. There is currently no evidence that this has happened.
First, China has not yet found a mutation of the virus. The above-mentioned WHO statement of 3 January shows that even if some foreign governments have found and tested Chinese citizens when they go abroad, there is no evidence that the virus has developed in China.
Moreover, some international organizations and foreign institutions do not approve of special testing for people leaving China from China.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) released a report on Tuesday that travelers from China do not increase the risk of EU citizens contracting the new crown.
The center said: "The virus variant that is circulating in China is already circulating in Europe.
"So [they] should not pose a challenge to the immunity of EU and EEA citizens." "In addition, the level of immunization and vaccination of EU and EEA citizens is relatively high," the center said. ”
The European CDC added that given the high level of immunity in the European population and the pattern of the emergence of new coronavirus variants and subtypes in Europe in the past, the surge in cases in China "is not expected to change the epidemiological situation of the new crown [in the EU and EEA]".
Meanwhile, at a meeting last week, the European Union's health and safety committee rejected a proposal to require travelers from China to take a coronavirus test before departure.
Obviously, the current European prevention and control of China is basically preventive.
Some international institutions, considering economic development, also oppose special treatment of China in terms of entry epidemic prevention and testing.
Willie Walsh, president of the International Air Transport Association, the world's largest aviation association, criticized the "knee-jerk" measures, which he said had not stopped the spread of the virus before, but they had hit airlines recovering from the pandemic.
On the other hand, the XBB.1.5 virus in the United States has spread from the northeastern United States to 25 countries around the world, but there is no scenario where the rest of the world closes its doors to the United States. The key here is to be good at communicating and cooperating with the world.
So, after checking the nucleic acid, what can be done?