Israel imposes COVID-19 tests on travelers arriving from China
The Israeli Ministry of Health announced on Friday that its country is imposing tests for the detection of COVID-19 on travelers arriving from China, a country affected by an explosion of cases of coronavirus infection, reports AFP.
Health Minister Arie Dery, who took office late Thursday, convened a meeting of senior public health officials on Friday to discuss the impact on Israel of the dramatic increase in the number of coronavirus cases in China. During the meeting, "it was decided to order foreign airlines to accept foreign nationals on a flight from China to Israel only if they have been tested (negative) for COVID-19," Dery said in a statement. The latter also called for the establishment of a "voluntary" testing center for people returning from China and recommended "avoiding" travel to the country. With Friday's decision, Israel joins the United States, Japan, Spain, Italy, South Korea and other countries that have adopted new border measures following Beijing's decision to relax strict anti-Covid-19 policies. The European Union's health agency said on Thursday that the introduction of mandatory COVID screenings for people traveling from China across the EU is currently "unjustified", citing "higher population immunity" but also the fact that the variants now circulating in China appeared earlier and were replaced. The new border measures come after UK-based health care company Airfinity reported that around 9,000 people were dying from COVID-19 in China every day, double the estimate last week. Airfinity expects the death toll to peak on January 23, at around 25,000 daily, and the cumulative death toll to reach 584,000 since December. Since December 7, when China radically changed its stance, authorities have officially reported only ten deaths from COVID. COVID infections began to rise in China in November and intensified in December after Beijing abandoned its zero-COVID policy, including regular testing of the population and publication of data on asymptomatic cases. However, the country has announced the end of mandatory quarantine on arrival in the country from January 8 and the gradual resumption of overseas travel for Chinese, causing concern in several countries, including the United States.
