China Says U.S. Visitors Will Need Negative Virus-Test Results

(Bloomberg) -- China will require passengers arriving on direct flights from the U.S. to provide negative Covid-19 nucleic-acid test results taken within 72 hours of the flight.

Passengers traveling from the U.S. to China, and those transiting in any country that the Chinese government has listed as requiring the screening, must have negative Covid-19 results from a test done within three days of boarding at the last layover destination, China’s embassy in America said in a statement on Friday. Both sets of rules will take effect Sept. 15.

Passengers who transit in the U.S. before flying to China will be required to submit a health declaration to the airlines or hold a green health code, according to the statement.

China’s new requirement is the latest in a series of restrictions imposed on U.S. citizens by Beijing, and counter measures taken by Washington, because of the pandemic and a deterioration in relations between the world’s two biggest economies.

In early June, China barred U.S. airlines from restarting service to the Asian nation, prompting the Trump administration to threaten a suspension of passenger flights to the U.S. by Chinese carriers. While Beijing eased its ban, allowing U.S. airlines to each operate one flight a week to China, the American Administration said China was continuing to violate its airlines’ rights and would only permit two flights a week in total from Chinese carriers.

At the end of January, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order that temporarily barred foreign nationals who had visited China unless they were immediate relatives of U.S. citizens or permanent residents, and said that flights from China would be restricted to just seven U.S. airports.

Coronavirus cases in the U.S. increased to 6.18 million on Friday, with the number of deaths rising to 187,200.

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