SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea took steps on Friday to limit travelers from mainland China, imposing visa restrictions, testing requirements and limiting flights as Beijing grapples with a surge in Covid-19 infections.

Seoul's decision comes after countries including Italy, Japan, India and the United States announced their own measures, which they say are a bid to avoid importing new coronavirus variants from China.

"Until the February next year, those entering (South Korea) from China will be required to undergo a Covid test before and after their arrivals," Seoul's Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said Friday.

Travelers from China must provide a negative PCR test taken within 48 hours before boarding a plane to South Korea, or a negative antigen test within 24 hours before departure.

They will also be required to undergo a PCR test within the first day of their arrival, Han said.

China's hospital have been overwhelmed by an explosion in cases after Beijing began unwinding hardline controls that had torpedoed the economy and sparked nationwide protests.

A growing number of countries have imposed restrictions on visitors from China after Beijing's decision to end mandatory quarantine on arrival prompted many to book travel plans.

Chinese citizens have been largely confined to their country since Beijing pulled up the drawbridge in March 2020.

South Korea will also restrict the issuing of short-term visas to Chinese nationals, excluding public officials, diplomats and those with crucial humanitarian and business purposes, until the end of January next year.

Seoul is scaling back the number of flights from China and all flights from the country will now have to land only at South Korea's main Incheon International Airport, Han added.

Transparent

China has insisted the data it publishes on Covid-19 deaths has always been transparent, state media reported, despite the official figures being tiny compared with other countries and its hospitals overwhelmed with infections.

Beijing's release of all virus information was done "in the spirit of openness," a top health chief said at a press briefing held by China's State Council, Xinhua reported late Thursday.

A national disease control body said there were about 5,500 new local cases and one death on Friday, but with the end of mass testing and the narrowing of criteria for what counts as a Covid fatality, those numbers are no longer believed to reflect reality. Some experts estimate there may be as many as 9,000 daily deaths.

Jiao Yahui from the National Health Commission told reporters on Thursday that China counts Covid-19 deaths only as cases of people who died of respiratory failure induced by the virus after testing positive with a nucleic acid test, rather than other countries that include all deaths within 28 days of positive tests.

"China has always been committed to the scientific criteria for judging Covid-19 deaths, from beginning to end, which are in line with the international criteria," Jiao said.

The NHC said last week it would no longer release an official daily Covid death toll.