China COVID testing travel requirements to be scrapped

Andrew Brown | March 9, 2023

International arrivals into Australia from China will no longer need to prove a negative COVID-19 test, after the federal government scrapped travel requirements.

The COVID-19 testing measures for travellers from China, Hong Kong and Macau were brought in on January 5 following fears of a new variant and a wave of infections in China.

Health Minister Mark Butler said the requirements of needing a negative test to enter the country will be scrapped from Saturday, after data showed COVID-19 numbers in China have peaked.

“This is a sensible, measured decision based on decreasing COVID-19 case numbers in China, regular data updates from China on case numbers, and the fact that we have strengthened our capacity to detect and respond to emerging variants of concern within Australia of international origin,” Mr Butler said.

“I would like to thank all travellers from China and airlines who complied with these testing arrangements.”

Australia was one of several countries to bring in new testing requirements for arrivals from China due to possible COVID-19 spikes.

Concerns were also raised China was not sharing accurate data with health organisations on its outbreaks, following the easing of zero-COVID measures across the country.

However, the federal government said there had been no new variants of concern out of China.

Australia has followed other countries including the US, Japan and France in repealing the travel requirement.

Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said the restrictions, which went against the advice of the chief medical officer, had undermined the “great trust” Australians rightly had in their medical experts.

“Today, we saw the minister for health admit that the measures he put in place ‘out of an abundance of caution’ were unnecessary, with no new variants of concern emerging out of China,” she told AAP.

She said Mr Butler had argued the purpose of putting in place the restrictions was to “gather more evidence”.

“Now he must be transparent with the Australian public – what data did Australian health officials collect over the last three months from these measures, particularly as we know RATs are not genomically sequenced?”