Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg discourage non-essential trips to China amid COVID surge in country

Singapore, January 9 (ANI): Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg have discouraged non-essential trips to China as the country struggles with a rapid surge in COVID cases post the Chinese government's abandonment of its zero-COVID policy, reported Singapore based The Straits Times newspaper.

"We currently discourage non-essential trips to China. The reason is a peak in COVID infections and an overwhelmed health system," the German foreign ministry said on its official Twitter handle.

Luxembourg's foreign ministry in a statement said: "Luxembourg is aligning itself with the German travel advisory and is currently advising against non-essential travel to China."

"Since December, China has been experiencing its biggest wave of infections due to the end of the zero-Covid policy. In view of the risk of hospital overcrowding and, consequently, the risk of not being able to be treated quickly in the event of an emergency, non-essential travel to China is not recommended for the time being," Belgium's foreign ministry said on its website.

Many countries around the world have imposed travel regulations on China following a surge in COVID cases in the country.

Recently, ABC News reported that amidst a record increase in COVID infections in China, the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the US would require a negative COVID test from all travellers arriving in the country from China as well as those from Hong Kong and Macau.

"CDC is announcing this step to slow the spread of COVID in the United States during the surge in COVID 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," the CDC said in a statement.

The CDC said that starting from January 5, the United States would require international travellers coming from China to test negative for COVID before entering the country.

The Hong Kong Post reported that China is no longer adopting preventive measures to stop the country's COVID spread and is allowing Chinese nationals to move and travel as per their wishes.

This could result in a 2020-like situation when the pathogen spread across the world from Wuhan, the Hong Kong Times report said.

According to some media reports, China is trying to get its entire population infected by Covid so that it could achieve herd immunity and refocus on economic development.

However, the situation on the ground, according to reports, is chaotic.

According to reports, the ongoing Covid wave in China has seen Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chongqing, and other urban areas struggling to contain the outbreak, with hospitals overwhelmed and mortuaries full. (ANI)