Despite a massive corona wave in China, the EU states have not been able to agree on compulsory testing for travelers from the People’s Republic – but strongly recommend it. As the Swedish Presidency announced on Wednesday after a meeting of health experts from the member states in Brussels, the EU countries are urged to make a negative corona test not older than 48 hours mandatory for all travelers from China to Europe before departure should be.
There was agreement on recommending wearing a medical or FFP2 mask on board the aircraft and providing health information to travelers to China. The measures should be checked in the middle of the month. The decisions are not binding for the individual EU states, but are considered an important guideline.
In addition to the obligation to test, it is now recommended, among other things, that travelers from China be randomly tested for Corona when they arrive in the EU. Positive samples should be sequenced if necessary. In addition, the wastewater from airports where machines from China arrive should be examined.
Barely a month after the end of the zero-Covid strategy that had been pursued for almost three years, several hundred million people in China have already been infected with the virus. From January 8th, the obligation to quarantine when entering China will also end. According to experts, the huge outbreak is expected to last until March or April. Exact infection numbers are not available because the authorities have stopped publishing epidemiological data. The World Health Organization again requested more information from China on Wednesday. At the same time, she showed understanding for countries that have introduced testing regulations for travelers from the most populous country.
A number of EU countries such as Italy, France and Spain have already tightened entry rules on their own in the past few days. This brought back memories of the beginning of the pandemic, when the rules in Europe varied from country to country and were difficult for travelers to keep track of. The agreement on Wednesday is now intended to ensure a unified response from the EU.
The federal government also wanted to work in Brussels for a uniform European regulation. However, Berlin was particularly interested in “setting up virus variant monitoring”, as a spokesman for the Ministry of Health said. The variants of the corona virus previously known from China are still those that are also circulating in Germany, “but of course we would like to know at an early stage whether anything will change”.
The EU health authority ECDC recently gave the all-clear regarding the situation in China. This is unlikely to have any impact on the epidemiological situation in Europe, the authority said on Tuesday. She also emphasized that the variants in the People’s Republic of the EU are already in circulation and therefore do not pose a challenge to the immune response of EU citizens. The fact that the EU states have now agreed on new measures is also due to the fact that the data from China is considered insufficient.
Beijing recently emphasized that it had shared transparent information about the recent spread of the virus. At the same time, the foreign office spoke out against strict entry regulations from other countries for travelers from the People’s Republic. WHO emergency aid coordinator Mike Ryan emphasized on Wednesday that the requirement for tests was not a travel restriction.
