The Albanese government’s decision to require pre-flight COVID-19 tests for Chinese travellers has been dismissed by an epidemiologist as a political decision and not one based on public health benefits.
against travellers from China.Mr Butler said the government was looking at bringing in wastewater testing for flights landing in Australia, a measure Malaysia has announced for flights from China.Professor Esterman said this would be a far more useful measure than imposing restrictions on certain countries.
Professor Esterman argued that Australia did not have any reliable data on the extent of COVID-19 spread and “to blame China on for not reporting, I think, is like people living in glass houses”. Although omicron subvariants have proven no worse so far, “there could be a whole new variant coming, which is much more deadly than omicron. We simply don’t know at this stage,” he said.
Nonetheless, he noted China was not part of a global effort that included Australia to sequence COVID-19 cases for real-time intelligence sharing. The minister cited the World Health Organisation’s statement saying restrictions on travellers from China was “understandable” given the lack of data.“This, at the end of the day, is the most significant international health body,” he said.
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