China restricts foreign travel to curb Covid outbreak

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GBNews24 Desk//

China announced tighter restrictions on overseas travel for its citizens Wednesday in response to rising coronavirus cases in China, reports AFP.

Immigration authorities said they would temporarily ‘not be issuing ordinary passports and other entry-exit documents’ for non-essential reasons.

The restriction was announced on the day when China reported its highest daily number of local coronavirus cases in months as mass testing campaigns uncovered a trail of Delta variant infections, prompting authorities to heavily restrict travel to major cities.

Local governments have tested entire cities and locked down millions, with the official figures on Wednesday revealing 71 new infections — the most since January, but a low caseload despite the outbreak spreading to dozens of cities.

China had previously boasted of its success in crushing Covid-19, allowing the economy to rebound and normal life to return while swathes of the globe struggled to douse a pandemic that has killed more than four million people worldwide.

But the latest outbreak is threatening that record with nearly 500 domestic cases reported since mid-July.

The outbreak, which began when an infection among passengers on a flight from Moscow spread to airport cleaners in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, has exposed weaknesses in the country’s already strict border containment measures.

China’s immigration authority on Wednesday announced it would stop issuing passports and other documents needed for exiting the country in ‘non-essential and non-emergency’ cases.

That does not yet mean an overseas travel ban for the Chinese public.

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