A group of five Republican senators, led by Marco Rubio, on Friday urged President Joe Biden’s administration to impose a travel ban between the United States and China due to a surge in Chinese respiratory illness cases.
“We should immediately restrict travel between the United States and (China) until we know more about the dangers posed by this new illness,” stated the letter signed by Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, along with Senators J.D. Vance, Rick Scott, Tommy Tuberville and Mike Braun.
The global concern escalated when the World Health Organization (WHO) requested additional information from China, citing a report on clusters of undiagnosed pneumonia in children by the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases.
An official in the Biden administration said the US was closely monitoring the spike in respiratory illnesses in China. “We are seeing seasonal trends. Nothing is appearing out of the ordinary. … At this time, there is no indication that there is a link between the people who are seeking care in U.S. emergency departments and the outbreak of respiratory illness in China,” the official added.
China’s Embassy spokesperson in Washington, Liu Pengyu, dismissed the senators’ claims as “ill-intentioned fabrications,” expressing firm opposition.
Earlier this week, Maria Van Kerkhove, acting director of the WHO’s department of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, had said the increase appeared to be driven by a rise in the number of children contracting pathogens that they had avoided during two years of COVID-19 restrictions.
In recent months, the US and China have been gradually increasing flight operations between the two countries, although still below 2019 levels. Notably, the approved number of flights rose to 35 per week for each country on November 9, up from 12 per week in August.
The senators’ proposal echoes actions taken by former President Donald Trump in January 2020, when he restricted the entry of non-US citizens who had recently been in China due to COVID-19 concerns. However, flights between the two countries were not restricted.
Travel restrictions were lifted for fully vaccinated international visitors in November 2021, including from China. In June 2022, the United States also rescinded a separate requirement that air travelers test negative before arriving. The US in January had started requiring air passengers to get negative COVID tests after Beijing’s decision to lift its stringent zero-COVID policies, but lifted the requirements in March.