U.S. will require travelers from China to show negative COVID test before boarding flights

The United States will require that travelers from China provide a negative COVID-19 test before entering the United States, marking a return to more stringent pandemic travel restrictions as China battles a surge in cases.

The new measure will take effect on Jan. 6, according to CNN. Any passenger must take the test within two days of flying. The test may be either a PCR test or a self-administered test.

A federal official told the outlet that the new measures "will help limit the number of infected people and provide us an early warning about new variants."

China has rapidly relaxed its notoriously stringent COVID-19 lockdown measures in the face of mass protests over its Zero-COVID policy. Early in the pandemic, communist officials went so far as to weld shut the doors of buildings known to be home to infected persons.

Mass protests erupted nationwide in November, in part as a response to the deaths of 10 individuals from an apartment fire during which strict COVID-19 lockdown measures reportedly slowed emergency aid to the building's occupants.

India and Japan have already announced their own precautionary measures to handle travelers from China, per the outlet.