According to EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakidou, there should be “uniform travel regulations” for EU citizens who travel to China and for travelers who want to travel from China to the European Union in the next few days. This emerges from a letter to the 27 health ministers, from which the DPA news agency quotes. The provisions should also apply to airline and airport staff.
Kyriakides called on states to review and, if necessary, ramp up their national surveillance measures for the virus. “If a new variant of the Sars-CoV2 virus appears – be it in China or in the EU, we have to recognize it early on in order to be able to react quickly,” the letter continues. There will be an emergency meeting next week.
The party and parliamentary group leader of the European People’s Party (EPP), Manfred Weber (CSU), called for travelers from China to be tested throughout the European Union. Weber told the newspapers of the Bayern media group: “In an open Europe, it makes absolutely no sense to only test in one country.”
The Federal Ministry of Health is more relaxed: the head of the authority, Karl Lauterbach, currently considers mandatory tests when entering the country from China to be “not yet necessary”. As a central measure, however, close “variant monitoring” is being prepared at European airports, said the SPD politician. “In addition, I think it is very important that Europe reacts in a coordinated manner,” said Lauterbach.
It’s different in Italy: Passengers from China have to take a mandatory corona test at the airport after they land. The authorities began taking appropriate measures at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport on Thursday.
The United States (from January 5) and India (from Sunday) announced that in future travelers will have to show a negative result before departure. However, some experts express doubts about the usefulness of such measures.
The background to the measures, for example in the USA and Italy, are also fears of a new virus variant possibly emerging in China. Official Chinese information is considered insufficient by the US health authority CDC. High numbers of infected passengers were also reported from Milan: on December 26, two planes from China landed there, with 97 of 210 tested passengers testing positive for Corona.
After almost three years of strict precautions, China’s leadership abruptly announced an end to its controversial zero-corona policy on December 7th. According to officially unconfirmed internal estimates, 248 million people or 18 percent of the population were infected with Corona in the first three weeks of December alone.
In addition to the USA, Italy, Spain, Japan, India and Malaysia have tightened the regulations for entry from China. South Korea also checks travelers from the neighboring country with a PCR test.
