Dealing with Chinese travelers: EU is again looking for a corona strategy

Status: 04.01.2023 03:23

How to deal with the corona wave in China? The voices calling for a Europe-wide test requirement upon entry are increasing. It is quite possible that the EU will make a corresponding decision today.

By Stephan Ueberbach, ARD Studio Brussels.

This time, the European Union wants to avoid a patchwork quilt like at the beginning of the corona pandemic if possible. At that time, many member states had closed their borders without consultation, with sometimes chaotic consequences for travel and the transport of goods.

In view of the new Covid wave in China, where the number of infections has recently exploded, there is at least an attempt to coordinate better with each other. But opinions still differ widely.

So far, only Italy, France and Spain have required travelers from China to take a corona test. The European health authority finds this unnecessary because there is a comparatively high vaccination rate in the EU and new, dangerous virus mutations have not yet appeared.

The federal government is preparing for variants

The German government also considers controls at the borders – at least for the moment – to be superfluous. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said last Friday:

Nevertheless, that can change. We are therefore preparing variant monitoring at the airports. This is the main measure. Because if new variants were to arise, we could act immediately.

Other EU countries see it very similarly. Austria, for example, a popular destination for Chinese tourists, but also Belgium. Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke says there:

We will agree with Brussels airport that the dirty water from the machines from China will be collected separately so that we can examine it. And if we find corona viruses, we have them sequenced so that we know which variant it is and whether there may be a new mutation.

EU complains about insufficient information from China

Vandenbroucke prefers not to rely on information from China. Like his European colleagues or the EU’s disease control agency, the Belgian Minister of Health is also complaining that Beijing is once again providing too little data, for example on infections, hospital admissions, the utilization of intensive care units or deaths.

The Chinese do not fully inform us about the number of infections. And while the information so far on the virus variants is reassuring, well, if you don’t get clear information on one point, then you have every reason to doubt other points as well, and we just want to be safe.

It is therefore possible that the EU’s crisis response team will also agree today to require travelers from China to have a corona test before departing for Europe – as recommended by a large majority of the European Health Committee.

The leadership in Beijing is already outraged, speaks of an “unacceptable approach” and threatens unspecified countermeasures, although the European Union is also offering comprehensive help in the fight against Corona – such as the expertise of Western experts in public health or free delivery of vaccines. So far, however, there has been no reaction from the Chinese government authorities.

China is opening – and what is the EU doing to protect against Covid?

Stephan Ueberbach, ARD Brussels, January 4th, 2023 12:12 a.m

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