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Explicit advice from the chief medical officer not to force mandatory Covid testing on travelers from China was ignored a day before the order was announced.
- Medical director says new travel requirements are unnecessary
- People traveling from China to Australia must test negative before leaving
- Professor Paul Kelly said tests were unnecessary given Australia’s vaccination rates
The nation’s chief medical officer has called the new travel requirements for people from China unnecessary and inconsistent with Australia’s handling of Covid-19.
People traveling to Australia from China, Hong Kong or Macau will need to test negative within 48 hours of departure from Thursday.
People in transit will not be affected and those who test positive after arriving in Australia will need to follow local health advice, including the recommendation to isolate while they have symptoms.
Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly informed the health minister on December 31 that mandatory testing was “disproportionate to the risk” given Australia’s high vaccination rates, easy access to treatment for vulnerable people and the lower risk of transmission in summer.
The nation’s chief medical officer has called new travel requirements for people from China unnecessary and inconsistent with Australia’s management of COVID-19 (Pictured: Traveler receives pre-flight Covid test at a clinic Histopath testing at Sydney Airport in Sydney)
“I do not believe there are sufficient public health reasons to place additional restrictions or requirements on travelers from China,” he wrote.
Professor Kelly suggested testing aircraft sewage, voluntary sampling of arrivals, an increase in community sewage testing and following up on returning foreign travelers who have tested positive for the virus.
Health Minister Mark Butler said that while there was no evidence of an imminent threat to Australia, he made the decision out of “an abundance of caution” and to be able to rapidly detect and test any new strains.
He cited the World Health Organization’s request for more data from China to ensure authorities could quickly detect any new variants of COVID-19, calling the move modest.
“This is a very fast-moving situation and we have seen countries around the world make the decision that I made a couple of days ago,” he told Adelaide radio station 5AA.
Butler said similar measures will not be implemented for travelers from other countries such as the United States due to timely reporting of information and genomic sequencing data.
People traveling to Australia from China, Hong Kong or Macau will need to test negative within 48 hours of departure from Thursday.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton said the government needed to explain why it was going against health advice when there was no new variant of concern coming from China.
“In the absence of an Australian health council to implement the restrictions, the prime minister must justify why he has deviated from what was previously agreed,” he said.
Beijing recently scrapped strict ‘COVID zero’ measures in favor of a new policy of living with the virus, resulting in a rash of infections and the prediction of three waves of winter.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said Australia was already challenged enough to manage COVID “without unnecessarily exposing ourselves to a part of the world that has an extraordinarily large wave at the moment.”