The Council of International Airports of Europe (ACI Europe) regretted this Saturday the unilateral decision of several countries to impose health restrictions on travelers from China, including tests for the detection of covid-19.
The airports “consider that screening travelers from China and/or imposing other restrictions on travelers from China is neither scientifically justified nor risk-based,” noting that the European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) said so. it’s a statement.
The measures that some countries are applying, including those of the European Union, such as Italy, France and Spain, and third parties “are in disagreement with all the experience and evidence obtained in the last three years,” denounced ACI Europe. .
“The ineffectiveness of international travel restrictions to prevent the spread of covid-19 and its worrying variants has been unequivocally recognized by both the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control and the World Health Organization (WHO)” , reads the note.
ACI Europe considers that “the focus should be on increasing the sequencing of the virus to identify possible new variants and carry out surveillance”.
In this context, they recall that the European Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, invited this week, in a letter addressed to the Health Ministers, the EU States to increase surveillance guidelines, for example, sequencing samples to detect new variants.
The European Commission stressed this week the importance of “coordination” of national measures among the 27, given the appearance of coronavirus infections in China.
“We have to act together and we will continue our discussions (…). Coordination of national responses to serious cross-border threats to health is essential,” the European Commission said on Twitter on Thursday at the end of a meeting of the Health Security Committee to discuss the situation with member states.
The Commission has not proposed any specific protocol for travelers from China, as countries such as Spain, Italy, France, India, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan or the United States have done, although Brussels has highlighted that, in the meeting that took place on Thursday, “some Member States have proposed measures such as random testing of travelers”.
“Once again we are sinking under a blanket of unjustified and uncoordinated travel restrictions, which have no scientific basis,” said Olivier Jankovec, Director General of ICA Europe.
China is experiencing an unprecedented wave of infections by the coronavirus responsible for the covid-19 respiratory disease, which has worsened since the strong restrictions, with confinements and random tests, abruptly ended in early December.
Official statistics today indicate more than 7,000 new cases and only one death linked to covid, but these data are considered unrealistic, even compared to the record of hospitals and morgues that have been overcrowded for weeks.
Source: Observadora
