Most of the Member States of the European Union are in favor of requesting Covid-19 tests for all travelers from China, even before leaving the country, in response to the peak of infections in the Asian giant.
The countries of the community bloc are also inclined to recommend personal hygiene measures to travelers, including the use of a mask on flights departing from China, the control of wastewater from planes to monitor the possible appearance of new variants a arrival at its airports and improve the sequencing of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which caused the Covid-19 pandemic, among other measures.
These are the ideas with which the experts of the Member States “coincided” at their meeting on Tuesday, as summarized on the social network Twitter by the European Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, after the meeting.
Today, the Health Security Committee converged on actions including:
▶️Pre-departure tests for travelers from China
▶️Wastewater monitoring was intensified
▶️Increase in domestic surveillanceThe discussion continues tomorrow at IPCR.
unity remains our strongest tool against COVID.
– Stella Kyriakides (@SKyriakidesEU) January 3, 2023
At that meeting, a debate arose about the need to require negative tests for Covid-19 from Chinese passengers that are carried out even before leaving the Asian country, a hypothesis supported by a “vast majority” of the Member States, a spokesman said. of the community.
In any case, the spokesman stressed that the measures adopted “must focus on the most suitable flights and airports and be carried out in a coordinated manner to guarantee their effectiveness.”
The debate on this matter will continue on Wednesday, said the Cypriot commissioner, at a meeting of the Integrated Political Crisis Response Group (IPCR), in which representatives of the European institutions, Member States and other specialists participate, for the eventual decision concrete. decisions
“Unity continues to be our main instrument against Covid-19,” said Kyriakides, after the European Commission, in recent times, stressed the need for the Twenty-seven to coordinate their response to the sharp increase in infections in China.
Since the increase in Covid-19 cases in the Asian giant was made public, several members of the community bloc, including Spain, have once again imposed controls on travelers from China, although others, such as Belgium, have chosen not to. require travelers from that country. country for testing.
Today’s meeting of health experts from the Member States coincided with the publication of a report by the European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) in which this body concludes once again that the intensification of the Covid-19 pandemic in China does not represent a “challenge” for the EU countries at all, because they are the same variants that already circulate on the continent and because of the high levels of immunity and vaccination.
Source: TSF
