The United States will require a negative Covid-19 test for
travelers to the U.S. from China, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention announced Wednesday.
Beginning Jan. 5, 2023, all air passengers 2 years old and
older will need to provide a negative test no more than two days prior to their
departure from China, Hong Kong or Macau, and show the negative result to their
airline. Should a passenger test positive more than 10 days before a flight,
they can provide documentation of recovery in lieu of the negative test result,
according to the CDC.
Airlines must confirm the negative Covid-19 test result or
documentation of the recovery for all passengers before they board or deny
boarding to the passenger.
The requirement applies to all air passengers regardless of
nationality and vaccination status. It also applies to persons traveling from
China via a third country transit, and to passengers connecting through the
U.S. onward to further destinations.
The U.S. joins India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan in requiring
such testing after the Chinese government announced it was lifting its strict
zero-Covid policies, and it stopped reporting the number of Covid cases in the
country.
The CDC announced this requirement "to slow the spread
of Covid-19 in the United States during a surge in Covid-19 cases in the
[People's Republic of China] given the lack of adequate and transparent
epidemiological and viral genomic sequence data being reported from the
PRC."