The Italian Health Minister, Orazio Schillaci, made the Covid-19 test mandatory for travelers from China, a country that is currently facing a strong wave of cases, advances the newspaper La Repubblica. Before, the Lombardy region had already anticipated the introduction of the measure, even detecting a flight in which 52% of the passengers ended up testing positive.
The Lombardy Regional Secretary of Health, Guido Bertolaso, regretted that the Chinese authorities are not saying anything, which contradicts the figures we are seeing “when revealing the data on those infected after the tests carried out at the Malpensa international airport, in Milan. .
On December 26, passengers on two flights were tested: “On the first, 35 of 92 passengers (38%) tested positive. On the second, 62 of 120 (52%) tested positive.”
In Italy, health is an area of competence of the regional authorities and therefore each of them can take different measures. The Lombardy region was the first to decide “to subject all travelers and crew from China to molecular tests (…),” the Italian Foreign Ministry announced on a website dedicated to travelers.
In 2020, this was the first region in Europe to go into lockdown to contain the pandemic of the new coronavirus responsible for Covid-19 and it still lives with the trauma of the shock of the first wave of cases, which was highly fatal.
However, the measure was eventually extended to the entire country by Health Minister Orazio Schillaci, who decreed mandatory Covid-19 testing and virus sequencing “for all passengers from China and who are in transit in Italy.” . .
This measure, the official writes, “is essential to guarantee the surveillance and identification of any variant of the virus, in order to protect the Italian population.”
France also studies
France also announced that it is “prepared” to “study all useful measures” and that it is “very closely following the evolution of the situation in China”, in the face of an explosion of Covid-19 cases.
“The Ministry of Health and Prevention is closely following developments in China” and “is ready to study all useful measures that can be implemented, together with European partners, and within the legal framework that exists today,” according to a statement. to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
France no longer requires any additional procedures related to covid-19 to enter the country, but the text that lifted the restrictions provides that the Government can impose, until January 31, the presentation of a negative test to those over 12 years of age “in case a new variant appears and circulates that could pose a serious threat to health.”
Japan also announced today that it will reinstate mandatory testing for travelers from mainland China starting this Friday.
The island of Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory, also announced it will carry out checks on travelers arriving from mainland China.
The abrupt end to China’s “covid zero” policy is raising concerns in several countries, including the United States, which is considering entry restrictions for Chinese travelers, as China currently faces the biggest wave of infections in the world, amplified due to the appearance of new variants.
Chinese authorities ended most anti-Covid-19 measures without warning on December 7, amid growing public exasperation and a major hit to the economy after three years of restrictions.
Also of concern is the lack of transparency regarding the number of infections, which authorities have stopped publishing daily and say is difficult to count since testing is no longer mandatory.
The World Health Organization (WHO) already expressed itself, last week, “seriously concerned” about the wave of new cases of Covid-19 in China, and asked Beijing for greater transparency to be able to deal with future pandemics.
Covid-19 is an infectious respiratory disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, detected at the end of 2019 in China and which has spread rapidly throughout the world.
Source: TSF
