BEIJING, China (AFP) – China on Tuesday described as “unacceptable” the growing foreign restrictions imposed on travelers from its territory after more than a dozen countries imposed new COVID-19 restrictions on the world’s most populous nation.
Israel, the United States, Canada, Japan and France are among the countries insisting that all travelers from China provide negative COVID tests before arrival, amid developing considerations about cases.
The sharp rise in infections in China comes after Beijing lifted years of strict restrictions last month, with hospitals and crematoria temporarily overwhelmed.
But Beijing has pressed ahead with a long-awaited reopening, and last week pronounced the end of mandatory quarantines on arrival, prompting Chinese to plan abroad.
“Some countries have taken access restrictions targeting Chinese travelers,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said at a normal briefing.
“This has no clinical basis and some practices are unacceptable,” he added, warning that China would possibly “take countermeasures based on the precept of reciprocity. “
Asked about China’s reaction, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne defended the new rules.
“We are doing our duty by asking for evidence,” Borne told franceinfo radio.
“We will. “
The regulations imposed on all travelers from China, not just Chinese citizens, while Beijing continues to limit the entry of visitors and does not have visas for foreign tourists or students.
Countries such as the United States have also cited Beijing’s lack of transparency regarding knowledge of infections and the threat of new variants as an explanation for why to restrict travelers.
China has recorded just 22 COVID deaths since December and has drastically lowered the criteria for classifying deaths, meaning Beijing’s own statistics on the unprecedented rise are now widely noted as not reflecting reality.
As fitness staff across the country grapple with a surge in cases, a senior doctor at one of Shanghai’s most sensitive hospitals said 70 percent of the megacity’s population may now have been infected with COVID-19, state media reported Tuesday.
Chen Erzhen, vice president of Ruijin Hospital and a member of Shanghai’s COVID expert advisory group, estimated that most of the city’s 25 million citizens would possibly be infected.
“Now the spread of the epidemic in Shanghai is very broad and possibly would have reached 70 percent of the population, which is 20 to 30 times more than in April and May,” Dajiangdong, owned by the Communist Party, told the Communist Party-owned study. for the People’s Daily.
Shanghai endured a grueling two-month lockdown starting in April, in which more than 600,000 citizens were inflamed and many were transported to mass quarantine centers.
But now, the Omicron variant is spreading wildly through the city.
In other major cities besides Beijing, Tianjin, Chongqing and Guangzhou, the Chinese government says the wave has already peaked.
In neighboring Zhejiang province, the disease government said Tuesday that there have been one million new COVID infections in recent days and that the province is entering a peak plateau.
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“More than a hundred ambulances arrive at the hospital every day,” he said, adding that about a portion of emergency room admissions were for other vulnerable people over the age of 65.
At Tongren Hospital in central Shanghai, AFP journalists on Tuesday saw patients receiving emergency medical care outdoors, outside the crowded emergency department.
The corridors overflowing with dozens of elderly mendicants in crowded beds, connected to intravenous drips.
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National Health Commission (NHC) official Jiao Yahui admitted that coping with the expected construction in rural spaces would be a “big challenge. “
“What we are most worried about is that in the past three years, no one has returned home for the Lunar New Year, but they can still do it this year,” Jiao told state broadcaster CCTV on Monday.
“As a result, there may be a wave of retaliation from city dwellers to the countryside to their relatives, so we are even more involved in the rural outbreak. “
The Times of Israel contributed to this report.
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