{"id":51602,"date":"2023-01-02T09:06:44","date_gmt":"2023-01-02T00:06:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/jan\/02\/labor-flags-wastewater-tests-on-inbound-planes-as-mandatory-covid-checks-for-china-arrivals-resumes"},"modified":"2023-01-02T09:06:44","modified_gmt":"2023-01-02T00:06:44","slug":"labor-flags-wastewater-tests-on-inbound-planes-as-mandatory-covid-checks-for-china-arrivals-resumes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=51602","title":{"rendered":"Labor flags wastewater tests on inbound planes as mandatory Covid checks for China arrivals resumes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Health minister defends country-specific testing as necessary due to \u2018absence of comprehensive information\u2019 on Covid\u2019s spread in China<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global\/live\/2023\/jan\/02\/australia-news-floods-the-voice-liberal-labor-coalition-weather\">Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updates<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Get our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/2022\/oct\/29\/email-newsletters-guardian-australia-best-daily-news-emails-newsletter-free-sign-up-inbox-subscribe-headlines?CMP=cvau_sfl\">morning and afternoon news emails<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/ng-interactive\/2018\/may\/15\/the-guardian-app?CMP=cvau_sfl\">free app<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/series\/full-story?CMP=cvau_sfl\">daily news podcast<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Australia is planning to introduce wastewater testing for incoming flights in an attempt to gather more information about the possible entry of new Covid variants.<\/p>\n<p>The health minister, Mark Butler, announced the measure on Monday in a round of interviews defending <a href=\"https:\/\/theguardian.com\/australia-news\/2023\/jan\/01\/australia-imposes-mandatory-covid-tests-for-travellers-from-china-amid-fears-of-diplomatic-backlash\">the decision to reimpose pre-flight Covid testing for passengers from China<\/a> as necessary because of a \u201cabsence of comprehensive information\u201d about the disease in China.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/2021\/dec\/21\/sign-up-for-five-great-reads-guardian-australias-wrap-of-our-best-summer-stories\">Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/jan\/02\/labor-flags-wastewater-tests-on-inbound-planes-as-mandatory-covid-checks-for-china-arrivals-resumes\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Health minister defends country-specific testing as necessary due to \u2018absence of comprehensive information\u2019 on Covid\u2019s spread in ChinaFollow our Australia news live blog for the latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":248,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,43,645,324,50,1066,346,914],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-australia-news","category-australian-foreign-policy","category-australian-politics","category-china","category-coronavirus","category-health","category-infectious-diseases"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/248"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51603,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51602\/revisions\/51603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}