A group of Republican senators wrote to US President Joe Biden’s administration to ban travel between the United States and China following reports of a spike in Chinese respiratory illness cases. Led by Florida Republican senator Marco Rubio, the lawmakers in a letter wrote: “We should immediately restrict travel between the United States and (China) until we know more about the dangers posed by this new illness”.
The letter was also signed by JD Vance, Rick Scott, Tommy Tuberville and Mike Braun. Rubio, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, along with the aforementioned five others, said the Biden administration should be cautious about the rise in cases of respiratory illnesses in China.
The cases became a global issue when the World Health Organization (WHO) asked the Chinese government for more information regarding clusters of undiagnosed pneumonia in children by the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases.
“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 US emergency departments and the outbreak of respiratory illness in China,” a Biden administration official was quoted as saying by news agency Reuters.
China has opposed the proposal for the travel ban in the letter. “The relevant claims are purely ill-intentioned fabrications. China firmly opposes them,” Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Maria Van Kerkhove, acting director of the WHO’s department of epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention, said the rise in cases can be attributed to the rise in the number of children contracting pathogens that they were able to avoid during the two years of Covid-19 pandemic.
Flights between the United States and China have increased and there are currently 35 flights per week for each country, up from 12 per week in August. Former US President Donald Trump in January 2020 barred most non-US citizens who had recently been in China from entering the United States due to Covid concerns.
He, however, did not restrict flights between the two countries.
