(Daily Wire) President Joe Biden faced scrutiny this week over his past attacks on former President Donald Trump regarding pandemic restrictions after the Biden administration announced it was reinstating testing requirements for travelers coming to the U.S. from China.
The announcement from the administration comes as coronavirus numbers in China have skyrocketed in recent weeks, with millions of cases being reported on a daily basis by local health authorities.
“CDC is announcing today that it will implement a requirement for a negative COVID-19 test or documentation of recovery for air passengers boarding flights to the United States originating from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau,” the CDC said in a statement. “CDC is announcing this step to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the United States during the surge in COVID-19 cases in the PRC given the lack of adequate and transparent epidemiological and viral genomic sequence data being reported from the PRC.”
The statement said that the policy will go into effect next week and will require that all passengers two years of age and older will be “will be required to get a test (such as a PCR test or an antigen self-test administered and monitored by a telehealth service or a licensed provider and authorized by the Food and Drug Administration or the relevant national authority) no more than 2 days before their departure from the PRC, Hong Kong, or Macau, and show a negative test result to the airline upon departure.”
Conservatives were quick to point out Biden’s attacks on Trump back in 2020 for putting in place some travel restrictions for those flying into the U.S. from China.
“I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the ‘borders’ from China – against the wishes of almost all,” Trump tweeted on March 18, 2020. “Many lives were saved. The Fake News new narrative is disgraceful & false!”
Biden responded at the time: “Stop the xenophobic fear-mongering. Be honest. Take responsibility. Do your job.”
Biden’s team claimed a week later that the then-former vice president was not criticizing Trump’s coronavirus travel restrictions.
