The European Union (EU) “strongly encourages” its member states, Wednesday, January 4, to impose on travelers from China, a country facing an unprecedented surge in Covid-19 cases after the sudden abandonment of its strict zero Covid policy, a negative Covid test dating back less than 48 hours before their departure.
EU members also agreed on other recommendations. The first is to complete the negative test required on boarding by “random testing” on arrival on European soil, with “a sequencing of positive results” to identify possible new variants. The Twenty-Seven are also encouraged to “test the waste water of airports hosting international flights and that of planes arriving from China”with genomic sequencing.
Finally, the Member States have agreed to “recommend to all passengers flights to and from China” to wear a protective mask, according to the conclusions of this meeting, which was also attended by representatives of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
The Europeans have agreed to take stock again of the situation and the measures introduced “by mid-January”. Formulated at the end of a meeting of health and home affairs experts from the Twenty-Seven, these conclusions are considered as definitively adopted, as they are recommendations that are not legally binding.
The Europeans have already acted in dispersed order
Worried about the lack of transparency regarding the data provided by the Chinese authorities and fearing the appearance of new variants, the Europeans reacted in dispersed order: Italy and Spain unilaterally imposed tests on arrival for passengers in from China, while France will require, from Thursday, a negative test of less than forty-eight hours on their departure.
China on Tuesday condemned these restrictions imposed by a growing number of countries around the world, warning that it could take “countermeasures” in retaliation. “Our approach is based on science (…). We are taking the measures we deem justified, appropriate to the evolving situation in China, and based on discussions between our experts.”, retorted Wednesday a spokeswoman for the European Commission. While Member States will remain free to apply the recommendations adopted at EU level, “everyone understands that if we don’t act together, there will be holes in the system”added another spokesperson.
The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, ECDC, one of the EU’s health agencies, ruled last week that systematic screening of travelers was “unjustified” given the level of collective immunity in Europe and the presence on this continent of the same variants as in China. Pointing out also the lack of Chinese statistics “reliable”the ECDC estimated again on Tuesday that the explosion of infections in China “should not have an impact on the epidemiological situation in Europe”.