France joins Spain and Italy in not making it easy for arrivals to show a negative result, with the UK following suit
European countries will step up surveillance for possible new coronavirus variants from China, as Spain and France have reinstated mandatory testing at airports in reaction to Beijing’s swift rollback of anti-infective measures.
On Friday, both countries followed Italy’s lead by requiring arrivals from China to have a negative verification result, though unlike Rome, Spain makes exceptions for those who may turn out to be fully vaccinated.
At a press conference that delivered Spain’s new measures, the country’s fitness minister, Carolina Darias, also said she is pushing to review the situations that must be met for travelers to download the EU’s virtual Covid certificate.
A surge in infections in China and doubts about official knowledge of the regime have led to the rollback of Covid controls in several countries outside the EU, the US added. The US, India, Israel, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. The United Kingdom announced a similar decision.
Chinese state media said the reversal of tests needed for travelers from China is “discriminatory” and politically motivated in an effort to undermine China’s reopening.
In Berlin, Berlin and Paris, however, officials said this week that it’s vital to be vigilant, but it’s too early to sound the alarm about the outbreak in the world’s most populous country.
German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said it is “not yet necessary” to reinstate mandatory testing for travelers entering the borderless Schengen domain from China via Germany.
Data on covid variants provided through Beijing was not reliable enough, the center-left politician said. “And as a result, we have to rely on ourselves,” for example, by thoroughly examining individual flights, he said.
On Friday, the European Commission’s fitness policy leader suggested the 27 EU member states step up gene sequencing for covid-19 infections and monitoring of wastewater, adding airports, to find new variants that can be imported from China.
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In a letter to EU member states’ fitness ministers, Stella Kyriakides said the bloc deserves to be “very vigilant” when China lifts restrictions on Jan. 8, as reliable epidemiological and testing knowledge for China is quite scarce.
In the letter, Kyriakides ministers evaluate their coronavirus genetic sequencing practices “as a quick step,” Reuters reported.
Earlier in the week, Italy’s far-right prime minister Giorgia Meloni argued that requiring covid testing for all passengers from China “is only effective if it is done at the European level,” noting that many other people arrive in Italy on connecting flights via other European countries.
After an announcement made Thursday through Italy’s Ministry of Health, travelers from China must provide a negative result when boarding their flight and take an antigen moment upon arrival.