Over the past week, European countries have been divided over the necessary requirements that need to be imposed on travellers arriving from China, considering the recent surge in Covid-19 caseload in the Asian country.
After Italy decided to impose mandatory testing last week, an emergency meeting of EU’s Health Security Committee took place on 29 December to evaluate the situation and decide whether all Member States should impose some restrictions or not. At that time the committee, advised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), decided the increased number of cases in China is not a threat for the EU.
In the meantime, France and Spain joined Italy in requesting pre-departure testing for people coming from China and demanding the measure to be taken at EU level. The Health Security Committee convened again yesterday to re-evaluate the situation and discussed monitoring, surveillance and sequencing, testing and vaccination and hygiene and health measures for travellers.
Although the ECDC recommendation remains unchanged, the Committee converged on pre-departure testing for travellers coming from China, Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides informed. It is also asking members to increase wastewater monitoring, for the detection of possible new virus variants, as well as domestic surveillance.
EU unity remains our strongest tool against Covid.
Stella Kyriakides, EU Health Commissioner
Yesterday, the ECDC released another statement reiterating the lack of scientific evidence for imposing travel restrictions as there are no new variants in circulating in China and the EU has a high immunity rate. “The variants circulating in China are already circulating in the EU, and as such are not challenging for the immune response of EU/EEA citizens. In addition, given higher population immunity in the EU/EEA, as well as the prior emergence and subsequent replacement of variants currently circulating in China by other Omicron sub-lineages in the EU/EEA, a surge in cases in China is not expected to impact the Covid-19 epidemiological situation in the EU/EEA”, the ECDC highlighted.
A meeting of the Council’s Integrated Political Crisis Response (IPCR) will take place today to give an official recommendation for the necessary measures to be taken at EU-level, taking in consideration the decision of the Health Committee.
If new restrictions are imposed, China has announced it will take similar measures against the restrictive countries. “We do not believe the entry restriction measures some countries have taken against China are science-based. Some of these measures are disproportionate and simply unacceptable. We firmly reject using Covid measures for political purposes and will take corresponding measures in response to varying situations based on the principle of reciprocity”, spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry Mao Ning said at a press conference.
