Most European Union countries favour introducing
pre-departure Covid testing for travellers from China, the
European Commission has said, as Beijing plans to lift
travel restrictions on its citizens despite a wave of Covid infections.
The common EU approach emerged after a meeting on
Tuesday of the Health Security Committee, an EU advisory body of
national health experts from the EU-s 27 countries and chaired
by the Commission.
“The overwhelming majority of countries are in favour of
pre-departure testing,” a Commission spokesperson said.
“These measures would need to be targeted at the most
appropriate flights and airports and carried out in a
coordinated way to ensure their effectiveness,” he said.
The Commission on Tuesday prepared a draft proposal for
the talks, which included a recommendation for mask-wearing on
flights from China, wastewater monitoring for aircraft arriving
from China, genomic surveillance at airports and increased
monitoring and sequencing and increased EU vigilance on testing
and vaccination.
“This will now be revised and adopted based on the input
of (EU) Member States,” the Commission spokesperson said, adding
more talks on the measures would take place at another meeting
of EU health officials on Wednesday afternoon.
The spokesperson said all EU countries agreed they needed a
coordinated approach to the changing situation in China and to
deal with the implications of increased travel from China to Europe
after China lifts its stringent pandemic policies on January 8.
READ MORE: Beijing criticises Covid curbs on Chinese travellers, warns countermeasures
China threatens countermeasures
China insisted the situation was “under control” and medical provisions were in “adequate supply,” government spokesperson Mao Ning said.
As the 27-nation bloc moved closer to imposing some sort of restrictions on travellers from China, Beijing threatened countermeasures.
“We are firmly opposed to attempts to manipulate the Covid measures for political purposes and will take countermeasures based on the principle of reciprocity,” Mao said.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
said last week it did not currently recommend measures on
travellers from China.
It said the variants circulating in China were already
in the European Union, that EU citizens had relatively high
vaccination levels and the potential for imported infections was
low compared to daily infections in the EU, with healthcare
systems currently coping.
Other scientists have also said limits on travel would have little impact on containing the disease, but they also insisted on the value of looking for potential variants not in Europe at the moment.
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