Key Points
- China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has hit out at some countries mandating a negative COVID test before arrival.
- The mandates come as China experiences a sharp increase in COVID infections.
- The WHO is calling for greater detail from China, to confirm which variants are present in the country.
The Coalition has chastised the federal government for not following expert health advice when enacting a for travellers from China.
The health minister and treasurer maintain the move was done out of "an abundance of caution" and to gather more data about COVID given China's lack of transparency, despite the chief medical officer Professor Paul Kelly advising against it.
Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said the government's inference the chief medical officer didn't provide cautious advice undermines the trust Australians have in lifesaving health advice throughout the pandemic.
"Right the way through the pandemic, Australians have been provided the confidence that the Australian government was responding to the best available advice of Australia's chief medical experts," she said.
"Until now."
Senator Ruston also questioned how Australia would receive more data from tests being undertaken in China.
"The current arrangements for pre-flight testing will not result in any additional data on new or emerging COVID variants, because the tests will not provide Australia with any genomic sequencing," she said.
She called on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to be more transparent about why the health advice was ignored and whether future recommendations from experts would be followed.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the health advice had been taken seriously, with statements from the World Health Organisation raising concerns about China's transparency also considered.
"Our job in government is to make a decision which balances all the various factors and considerations. That's what we've done here," he told ABC radio.
Health workers guide travellers arriving from China at a testing centre at Incheon International Airport, South Korea. Source: Getty / Jung Yeon
Travellers from China will need to return a negative COVID test within 48 hours of departure from Thursday.
But details of the measures remain unclear, with China already requiring a negative test within 48 hours of departure and travellers only able to board a flight with a negative result.
China warns of countermeasures
China called the mounting international restrictions on travellers from its territory "unacceptable" on Tuesday after more than a dozen countries placed fresh COVID-19 curbs on visitors from the world's most populous nation.
Australia, the United States, Canada, Japan and France are among the countries insisting all travellers from China provide negative COVID-19 tests before arrival, as concerns grow over a surge in cases.
China is fighting a nationwide COVID-19 outbreak after abruptly easing restrictions that were in place for much of the pandemic.
China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning says COVID-19 restrictions placed by Western nations are unacceptable. Source: AAP / Ichiro Ohara
"This lacks scientific basis and some practices are unacceptable," she added, warning China could "take countermeasures based on the principle of reciprocity".
The treasurer said he was not concerned about China threatening retaliatory action.
"Not especially," Mr Chalmers said when asked if the threat of retaliation worried him.
"We do need to make sure that we've got the best possible surveillance of strains as they emerge but also waves as they emerge and become more difficult to manage.
"That's really one of the key considerations here as we put these responsible restrictions in place."
Mr Chalmers added that the requirement to have a medical practitioner supervise a rapid antigen test wasn't an onerous one for travellers despite China's hospital system facing immense strain.
New Zealand won't require Chinese arrivals to show COVID-19 test
The New Zealand government said on Wednesday it would not require travellers from China to produce a negative COVID-19 test, bucking a trend that has seen a number of nations implement such measures as cases surge in China.
New Zealand's COVID-19 minister, Ayesha Verrall, said in a statement that a public health risk assessment had concluded visitors from China would not contribute significantly to the number of cases in the country.
"There is minimal public health risk to New Zealand," she said.
All international arrivals in New Zealand are asked to test if they become symptomatic, and the country provides free tests at the airport.
Officials will be asking some travellers from China to do voluntary tests to gather more information, which Ms Verrall said reflected New Zealand's concern alongside that of the World Health Organization about China's lack of information sharing.
World Health Organization meeting
It comes as leading scientists advising the World Health Organization say they want a "more realistic picture" about the COVID-19 situation from China's top experts at a key meeting as worries grow about the rapid spread of the virus.
The WHO has invited Chinese scientists to a virtual closed meeting with its technical advisory group on viral evolution on Tuesday to present data on which variants are circulating in the country.
It is not open to the public or media.
"We want to see a more realistic picture of what is actually going on," Professor Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist who sits on the WHO committee, said.
Cities across China have struggled with surging infections, a resulting shortage of pharmaceuticals and overflowing hospital wards and crematoriums after Beijing suddenly dismantled its zero-COVID lockdown and testing regime. Source: Getty / Jade Gao
"It is in the interests of China itself to come forward with more reliable information."
Professor Tulio de Oliveira, a South African scientist who also sits on the committee and whose team has detected a number of new variants, said "of course" it would be good to get more information from China but this also applies globally.
So far, sequencing data from China provided to the online GISAID hub has shown the variants circulating there are offshoots of Omicron, in line with the dominant variants in the rest of the world.
Professor Koopmans and colleagues expect to discuss similar information at the WHO meeting on Tuesday, with scientists from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
The group meeting is an international committee of experts which has gathered throughout the pandemic and regularly receives briefings from countries experiencing large waves of infection or new variants.
Professor Koopmans said they have only seen a "tiny fraction" of China's cases sequenced so far — about 700 — and called for the establishment of a global surveillance network to keep track of SARS-CoV-2.
"Right now, what we are getting is very patchy but that has been the reality in other parts of the world as well," she said.
Professor De Oliveira criticised the imposition of travel restrictions by several countries on China, something South Africa experienced after alerting the world to the Beta and Omicron variants.
"One thing we should do three years into the pandemic is learn from our mistakes … To encourage a country to share more data, the best way is to support them and not discriminate against them with restrictions curbing travel," he said.
A WHO spokesperson said that a "detailed discussion" was expected about circulating variants in China, and globally, with Chinese scientists expected to make a presentation.
