The Majority Of European Union Countries Support COVID-19 Tests Before Departure For Flights From China

Illustration of COVID-19 European Union. (Wikimedia Commons/focusonmore.com)

JAKARTA - Most EU countries support the implementation of COVID-19 testing before departure, for travelers arriving from China, on Tuesday.

The European Commission said this was because Beijing plans to lift travel restrictions for its citizens starting this weekend, despite a wave of COVID-19 infections.

The European Union's general approach comes after a meeting on Tuesday from the Health Safety Committee, the bloc's advisory body consisting of national health experts from 27 European Union countries and chaired by the Commission.

"The majority of the country supports pre-departure testing," a Commission spokesman said.

"These steps need to be targeted at the most appropriate flights and airports, carried out in a coordinated manner to ensure their effectiveness," he explained.

The commission on Tuesday prepared a draft proposal for talks, which includes recommendations for wearing masks on flights from China, monitoring wastewater for aircraft arriving from China, genomic surveillance at airports, to increasing monitoring and sequencing as well as increasing EU vigilance in testing and vaccination.

"This will now be revised and adopted based on input from the Member States (EU)," a Commission spokesman said, adding more talks about the measures would be made at another meeting of the bloc's health officials on Wednesday afternoon local time.

The spokesman said all EU countries agreed they needed a coordinated approach to the changing situation in China, as well as to address the implications of increasing travel from China to Europe, after Beijing lifted a strict pandemic policy on January 8.

The European Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) last week said it is currently not recommending action against travelers from China.

It is known, the variant circulating in China is currently said to exist in the European Union. In addition, EU citizens have relatively high vaccination rates and a low potential for import infections compared to daily infections in the European Union, with health care systems currently addressing them.