Covid tests for China travellers to England to end

Covid investigating for travellers coming to England from China volition end, the UK authorities has announced.

Voluntary on-arrival investigating was introduced successful January successful a bid to observe immoderate caller variants arriving from China.

The authorities said an mean of 99 radical per formation had been tested, totalling 3,374 passengers.

During that period, 14 affirmative cases were identified, but nary was deemed to beryllium a variant of concern.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said from Friday, 17 March "passengers aged 18 oregon implicit travelling from mainland China and arriving astatine Heathrow Airport volition nary longer beryllium invited to instrumentality a voluntary trial connected arrival".

It added that from 5 April, no-one flying from China to the UK volition request a antagonistic pre-departure test.

The DHSC said China was sharing much accusation astir testing, vaccination and genomic sequencing results, providing greater transparency connected its home illness levels.

It said the latest information indicated that Covid variants observed successful China were "the aforesaid arsenic those already circulating successful the UK".

The Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention besides reported that each regions had passed their corruption peak, DHSC said.

"The ending of this enhanced surveillance is successful enactment with planetary partners specified arsenic the EU who are reducing borderline measures to show caller variants from China," it added.

The section said the authorities would support a scope of contingency measures to "enable detection, and swift and proportionate action, for imaginable caller harmful variants" should the request arise.