No measures yet against travelers from China, but free self-test
Kuipers’ letter is about an emergency meeting of the European Health Security Committee, which has taken place. The consultation of the committee, which coordinates the approach to serious health threats within the EU, about the possible risk that new, potentially dangerous corona variants will spread from China to Europe.
In Europe, life is concerned about possible risks from the virus resurgence in China. Since the strict measures were lifted there at the beginning of December, the Covid-19 virus has quickly spread again.
supervision
According to Kuipers, a ‘large majority’ of European countries are not yet taking joint, coordinated measures to prevent travelers from China.
The committee’s decision means that Chinese people can still travel unimpeded to most European countries. Minister Ernst Kuipers of Public Health explains the decision in a letter to the House of Representatives: “In the Health Security Committee there was a widely assumed hypothesis that it is now not necessary to introduce acute travel-restricting measures. I share these recommendations.”
However, the European countries have coordinated developments in China to monitor and set up ‘enhanced monitoring and surveillance’.
Some EU individual reports have initiated measures, including Italy and Spain. Not for nothing, as it turned out in Italy: two flights from China that landed in Milan on Boxing Day turned out to be full of corona-infected people. On the first flight, more than thirty percent of the passengers were infected; on a second flight it was 50 percent.
Test obligation Spain
Still, the borders of most European countries remain open as China deals with sub-varieties of the omikron variant ‘to the power-support’. “A good degree of immunity has been built up in the EU against this. Based on the data currently available, specified measures are not yet necessary.”
Spain earlier today to introduce a testing obligation for travelers from China. Travelers who die on proof of full vaccination are exempt.
During the meeting, the Netherlands urged that any measures taken for entry into the Union be taken jointly in order to make them effective. The EU has asked China for more transparency about the development of the infections.
In addition, Kuipers has asked the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment to intensify sewage water surveillance around Schiphol, ‘so that a possible new variant becomes rapid’. “This intensification will start immediately. In addition, I have agreed with the Testing Service and the Kennemerland Security Region that all passengers from China who come to visit the Netherlands at Schiphol will be offered a free self-test and information about its use.”