The Government could follow in the footsteps of the US and other countries in imposing new coronavirus restrictions on passengers arriving from China.
UK transport and Home Office officials are set to discuss later today whether they should sanction Covid-19 regulations on travellers from China, where they must test negative before entering the country.
The rise in cases across China follows the lifting of its strict "zero-Covid" policies, which kept infection rates low but fuelled public frustration and crushed economic growth.
Lunar New Year, which begins on January 22, is usually China's busiest travel season, and the government announced on Tuesday it will resume issuing passports for tourism for the first time since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
The US were the latest country to impose requirements of a negative test less than 48 hours before departure alongside India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan.
Japan will require a negative Covid-19 test upon arrival for travellers from China, and Malaysia announced new tracking and surveillance measures. India, South Korea and Taiwan are also requiring virus tests for visitors from China.
Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), Department for Transport and Home Office officials will convene on Thursday to discuss the move similar to the United States, which will come into effect from January 5 for all air passengers over two years old that depart from China, Hong Kong and Macao.
Six non-stop flights from China are due to arrive in the UK over the next seven days with 26 direct flights also due to land over the course of January.
Following the criticism of the UK's response to the start of the pandemic, Paul Charles, chief executive of the travel consultancy The PC Agency, believes the Government officials must learn from their previous errors.
He told The Telegraph : "Governments have learned lessons from the initial wave of Covid. One of those lessons is that they work more closely on such restrictions.
"You cannot have Italy and the US doing one thing and others not doing the same."
Italy have imposed testing on arrivals from China after becoming the first western country to be hit by the pandemic three years ago, now erring on the side of caution over fears of another variation of a disease which has already cost more than 180,000 lives.
Italian Health Minister Orazio Schillaci said: "The measure is essential to guarantee the surveillance and identification of any variants of the virus in order to protect the Italian population."
