No covid testing for Chinese travelling to UK

[Yirk]

The government aren't going to enforce mandatory covid testing for Chinese travellers coming to UK , your thoughts ...Good or bad move ?

Given how useless the previous testing on arrival system was, it's really not going to make any difference if they test or not.

I’m not sure it would help anything. Problem is that China is letting it rip at a totally different time to the rest of the world☹️ Not sure that won’t cause an issue with variants.

No border controls have ever kept a covid variant out of the country before. I think the testing/quarantine etc cost a lot and cause a lot of disruption for very little benefit.

Any variants won't stay in China for long and then you are back to testing/quarantine of people going to/from any country.

There’s already loads of COVID here so not really sure what the point of it would be, unless it’s a new more deadly variant- even then testing for travel historically didn’t stop new variants either.

COVID is rife in the UK and we aren't testing or putting any control measures in. What do you think testing travellers will achieve!?

I’m on the fence with this one because if it’s just regular Covid then whose to say all planes from the UK aren’t filled with infected. My worry is if they have a new bad variant not yet disclosed as we wouldn’t really know until it’s way past too late.

It feels like 2020 is knocking at the door.

Many Cruise lines required full boosters AND tests before boarding, and masks in public areas. Still got many cruises affected by covid outbreaks.

I don’t think it will make much difference. China has high covid cases now because they locked down harder and for longer.

If there are new variants coming out of China, and the BBC news suggested this was the case, then I would like to see testing, and immediate repatriation back to Chin on return flight if tested positive.
It may slow transmission into the UK, and hopefully deter travel in the first place.
I wouldn't rely on the Chinese authorities testing their end prior to departure.

italy have started testing all arrivals and apparently one flight had 52% of passengers test positive on arrival...so probably more than this would be infected as a result of the flight. Overall its a bit pointless being worried but the likelihood of new variants when there are very high levels of infection in a less exposed population and we've not really got particularly effective boosters for those who are vulnerable and need boosting, is always going to be of concern for a few years.

It'll start with testing from China, and then countries with a high percentage of Chinese travellers/new variant, then before you know it we're fucking around with red, amber and green and hotel quarentines and we're back in the land of expensive disruption.
And it'll get in regardless so more economic damage to no avail.

As far as I’m aware it’s mostly BA5.2. Which we’ve already had in Feb/March.

we should probably focus on the eleventy billion variants we have circulating in the U.K. more than trying to prevent a variant China got from the rest of the world re entering the U.K.

I’d assume that having one huge wave doesn’t make more difference to the number of variants than having high numbers of cases consistently for 2.5 years peaks of even higher cases every 3 months or so. Could be wrong though.

Maybe I am being pedantic but surely it should be reworded to "people travelling from China" and not "Chinese travellers".

But anyway, people travelling from China should be testing before getting on a plane. Not sure how effective that would be anyway.

Not worried at all. Most people have had covid and the jabs and unless it's a new and dangerous varient then it's not even worth worrying over

When are they tested, on arrival? After they've flown for several hours with other passengers who are released into the country (as negative at the time of testing). More holes than a sieve!
Besides the tests aren't exactly infallible.

Spain is now testing all travellers from China. I wouldn’t be surprised if the UK follows in the coming days. There must be concern about ‘something’ otherwise these are rather bold moves against China given the wider context of Covid levels across the world.

It's not even a new variant so I think it's just the same knee-jerk we've seen repeatedly over the last few years, one or two countries do something and the rest then want to follow.
Utterly pointless.

It's insane.

"China’s top health authority has confirmed that the country’s current outbreak is, by far, the largest the world has ever seen.

Near 37 million people in China were estimated to have been infected with Covid-19 on a single day this week, according to minutes from a meeting of the country’s National Health Commission, Bloomberg reported.

As many as 248 million people – nearly 18 per cent of China’s 1.4 billion-strong population – likely contracted the virus in the first 20 days of December, the health body estimated."

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-23/china-estimates-covid-surge-is-infecting-37-million-people-a-day

Sounds like the perfect way to cook up a few new variants to gift the world with come the new year.

Testing would achieve fuck all, so I don't much care.

Numbers drive policy, allow for preparedness, assist planning parameters. For someone who doesn't much care you certainly post copiously on the topic.

We e all had our vaccines and boosters so I’m not worried 🤷‍♀️

For as long as there are no restrictions beyond "try" to avoid contact with others if you know you've got covid, I really don't see that a few hundred possibly infected travellers is going to make the slightest bit of difference

Wasn't that how this whole thing started, three years ago? A few infected people. It won't just be "a few hundred possibly infected" travellers though. Milan is reporting that 50% of arrivals from China are COVID positive. So all over the world, and particularly for Chinese New Year, there will be an influx of travellers arriving from China. The US has declared passengers intending to travel there must show a covid negative test before departure, ditto South Korea. Ditto, for entry to Japan, India, and Taiwan. Other countries like Italy are testing arrivals, so at least have some genomic information re new and emerging variants, and also requiring a few days quarantine.

I thought 2023 was going to be different. But no, another massive global wave and most probably a new variant of concern.

I really don't see it being an issue because so many of us are jabbed. I'm not panicking at all.

The variant to watch is already here. It originated in the US.

And there’s plenty of opportunity to cook up new variants in the U.K. given we are also awash with covid. There’s little point in the U.K. doing anything while it has not mitigations to reduce covid spread within the country. It may be different in parts of Europe where there is some attempt to slow spread E.g. masking on public transport, better testing.

It would probably move much better to lower the age of the autumn booster eligibility and then try and reverse the damage they did with the misinformation about omicron itself being milder.