Cape Town - The SA Health Department will not be imposing travel restrictions or strict requirements on travellers from China, although it is “monitoring” the soaring Covid-19 cases in that country.
The Cape Argus queried the Health Department on whether it was considering enforcing stricter regulations for international arrivals, following the US and some EU countries who now require negative Covid tests from Chinese travellers to enter their countries.
This as Covid numbers have reportedly spiralled out of control in China as Beijing rolled back its “zero-Covid” lockdown regulations after widespread condemnation and protests.
“There is no immediate plan to impose travel restrictions or strict requirements on travellers from China,” Health spokesperson Forster Mohale said.
“However, we are closely monitoring the Covid situation in China and other parts of the world. Our priority is to get people vaccinated and get booster shots to protect themselves.”
He said that the department would issue an alert if the country needed to take extra precautions.
“Thus, there is no need for public to panic. We urge people to vaccinate and get booster shots to enhance their immunity against variants and sub-variants of the pandemic,” Mohale said.
On January 2, there were only 525 tests conducted, with 47 cases detected across SA, according to the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).
The NICD said there were eight new cases logged in the Western Cape on January 2, while there were 709 456 cases in the province as at January 2.
From January 5, the US will put in place a requirement on all travellers from China to provide a negative Covid-19 test to enter the country, joining more Western nations which imposed these restrictions after the upsurge in infections in China.
Italy, whose population was hit by Covid-19 in 2020, was the first country to slap travellers from China with the testing requirement.
Japan, India, South Korea and Taiwan have followed suit and now require tests for visitors coming from China.
China consular affairs and overseas services director Wang Qingquan referred queries to the Chinese embassy in Pretoria.
The embassy didn’t respond to queries, but the Associated Press (AP) reported yesterday that Beijing plans to retaliate with “counter-measures” as a response to countries which have tightened rules against passengers travelling from China.
“We believe that the entry restrictions adopted by some countries targeting China lack scientific basis, and some excessive practices are even more unacceptable,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning was quoted as saying by AP yesterday.
Ning said China was opposed to “attempts to manipulate the Covid measures for political purposes” and vowed that China “would take counter-measures based on the principle of reciprocity”
soyiso.maliti@inl.co.za