Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg are advising against non-essential travel to China as the country faces an unprecedented wave of COVID infections in three years.
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“We currently advise against non-essential travel to China. The reason for this is the increase in COVID infections and the overburdened health system in this country, said the Rapid Reaction Center of the Federal Foreign Office on Twitter.
“Luxembourg is following the German travel warning and is currently advising against non-essential travel to China,” said the Grand Duchy’s Foreign Ministry in a press release published late Saturday afternoon.
Even, writes in Belgium: “Since December, China has been experiencing its largest wave of infections due to the end of the zero-COVID policy. Given the risk of saturation of hospitals and thus the risk of not being able to get care quickly in an emergency, non-essential travel is discouraged for the time being,” says the website of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. .
China has been facing an unprecedented wave of contamination for three years, and the European Union this week urged its member states to make pre-flight screening carried out in China mandatory, supplementing that system with “random testing” upon arrival at the ground.
As a precaution, several countries, including the USA, Japan, France and Germany, have already issued identical measures.
Despite the resurgence of contamination, Chinese authorities will end mandatory quarantines on arrival in China on Sunday, allowing Chinese people to travel abroad again after three years of frustration.
Beijing on Tuesday condemned the imposition of COVID tests by some countries, calling them “unacceptable” and threatening “countermeasures”.
For its part, the World Health Organization (WHO) has denounced Beijing’s controversial methods of counting COVID victims. Despite Chinese hospitals being overwhelmed and crematoria full, authorities are reporting very few COVID-19-related deaths.