China: US visitors will need negative virus-test results

China will require passengers arriving on direct flights from the US to provide negative Covid-19 nucleic-acid test results taken within 72 hours of the flight.

Passengers traveling from the US to China, and those transiting in any country that the Chinese government has listed as requiring the screening, must have negative Covid-19 results from a test done within three days of boarding at the last layover destination, China’s embassy in america said in a statement on Friday. Both sets of rules will take effect September 15.

Passengers who transit in the US before flying to China will be required to submit a health declaration to the airlines or hold a green health code, according to the statement.

China’s new requirement is the latest in a series of restrictions imposed on US citizens by Beijing, and counter measures taken by Washington, because of the pandemic and a deterioration in relations between the world’s two biggest economies.

in early June, China barred US airlines from restarting service to the asian nation, prompting the Trump administration to threaten a suspension of passenger flights to the US by Chinese carriers. While Beijing eased its ban, allowing US airlines to each operate one flight a week to China, the american administration said China was continuing to violate its airlines’ rights and would only permit two flights a week in total from Chinese carriers.

at the end of January, US President Donald Trump signed an order that temporarily barred foreign nationals who had visited China unless they were immediate relatives of US citizens or permanent residents, and said that flights from China would be restricted to just seven US airports.

Coronavirus cases in the US increased to 6.18 million on Friday, with the number of deaths rising to 187,200. Bloomberg News

A wedding in Maine last month has been traced to 147 virus cases and three deaths, CNN reported on Saturday, quoting a local spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cases from the wedding branched out to a nursing home and a prison, the CDC was quoted as saying. The wedding was attended by 65 people though state law has capped such indoor events at 50 people, CNN said.

Maine reported 4,197 confirmed

Mexico’s government had ordered 1.1 million extra death certificates after parts of the country ran out amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez gatell said.

The regions include Mexico state, which surrounds most of Mexico City, gatell told reporters late Friday.