US plans COVID tests for visitors from China

　　US health officials on Wednesday announced new testing requirements for travelers from China that raised doubts from some medical experts.

　　All travelers age 2 and older must show a negative test result as of Jan 5.

　　The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also announced that a voluntary traveler-based genomic surveillance program will expand to seven key airports around the US.

　　The US move follows several other countries announcing testing as China announced this week that it will begin reopening its borders Jan 8, allowing residents to travel without quarantining upon return.

　　Governments and tourism-focused businesses around the world are preparing for a possible influx of travelers from what had been among the world's largest outbound tourist markets. The latest restriction could threaten to dampen the rebound of Chinese tourists to countries that had previously welcomed them, according to tourism professionals.

　　Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist and professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at University of Washington's School of Medicine, has been monitoring the COVID situation in China closely.

　　Despite some high projections for the number of COVID cases in China, Mokdad doesn't believe new travel restrictions are warranted. He recalled the efforts made to help India during its Delta outbreak.

　　"Instead of imposing measures on China, we should be helping China," Mokdad told The Washington Post.

　　Dr David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told The Associated Press that he hopes the restrictions "aren't kept in place longer than they need to be".

　　"I don't think it's going to have a major impact in slowing the spread of COVID-19," Dowdy said. "We have a whole lot of transmission of COVID-19 here within our borders already."

　　China was the world's largest outbound tourism market before COVID shut down global travel, with its overseas visitors spending $127.5 billion on travel in 2019.

　　As of Saturday, 151 countries had scrapped all entry restrictions, according to American travel website Travel Off Path.

　　The relaxation of COVID policies in China has boosted domestic flight and hotel bookings, according to several online travel platforms. Flight ticket sales during the peak Lunar New Year travel season in January also have surged by nearly 8.5 times compared with figures prior to the relaxation of COVID curbs, according to Qunar.com.

　　Ralph Zhu, a tour operator in Los Angeles, told China Daily: "We do see a sudden boom in people traveling to China. People have postponed their travel to China because of the Zero COVID policy. Since the policy was changed, they are eager to go to China. We don't expect Chinese tourists to visit the US anytime soon, because the situation is serious in China now," he said.

　　Alex Wang, founder and president of Chinatour.com, told China Daily: "There's a big boom in overseas Chinese traveling to China to visit their families, relatives and friends, since they haven't been able to do so for three years. So far, we have several thousand clients who have planned to travel to China. So I expect a big boom in tourists from China after it's completely open without any restrictions.''

　　Agencies contributed to this story.