UK set to introduce strict new Covid travel rules amid surging cases in China

The UK is set to require a negative Covid test for all passengers arriving from China as cases soar in the country, it has been reported.

Ministers had said the situation was being kept under review as Beijing announced plans to start reissuing passports and visas for overseas trips.

It will become the third European country after Italy and Spain to impose restrictions for fliers from China, joining other nations including the US, Japan, India, South Korea and Taiwan.

Italy urged the EU to impose rules across the bloc after it saw more than half (52%) of passengers on a flight from China test positive under its new measures.

It comes after the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said the screening of travellers from China would be “unjustified” as the surge was “not expected to impact” the EU.

Reports that China could be experiencing up to a million new cases a day has sparked global fears about the potential for new variants to emerge.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace had previously said the situation was “under review” but it marks a sharp turn in policy.

It emerged yesterday that PCR tests from people who have recently travelled to China will be fast-tracked to labs to detect any new variants in the UK.

Anyone who takes a PCR test, which is mainly people in hospitals or care homes, will be asked if they have recently been to the country.

Concerns have been rising since Beijing said it would reopen its borders next week.

Rishi Sunak’s party had so far been split on whether to introduce measures, however pressure appeared to be mounting to impose rules.

Some Tory MPs had called for a more robust response from the Government, even as the chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, Professor Andrew Pollard, said the imposition of travel restrictions was unlikely to stop variants reaching the UK.

Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood called for the testing of “all passengers regardless of nationality of all incoming flights from China”.

He told LBC: “Do we want to take a risk after all that we’ve been through? Why hasn’t COBRA met to come to the same conclusion?”

Tory MP David Davis similarly told the radio station he thought testing travellers from the country was a “pretty sensible requirement” and a “small price to pay for a very significant advantage”.

China’s Covid wave has been blamed on a number of factors including its zero-Covid policy as well as the type of vaccine it used.

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