EUROPE. Airports Council International (ACI) Europe has expressed regret at the number of states that plan to unilaterally impose health-related travel requirements including pre-departure or on-arrival testing of travellers from China.
The move follows the announcement last week by the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China (NHC) that outbound travel would return “in an orderly manner” in 2023.
ACI Europe said in a statement: “These unilateral actions are at odds with all the experience and evidence gained over the past three years. The ineffectiveness of international travel restrictions in preventing the spread of COVID-19 and its multiple Variants of Concern (VOCs) has been unequivocally recognised by both the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
“Testing travellers from China and/or imposing other restrictions for travellers from this country is neither scientifically justified nor risk based, as expressly stated in recent days by the ECDC.
“As States need to remain vigilant to the status and control of the virus, the focus should rather be on increasing genomic sequencing to be able to identify possible new COVID-19 variants and related surveillance. Such an approach, as urged by EU Health Commissioner Kyriakides in a letter sent earlier this week to Member States, does not require the testing of travellers but can be achieved by means such as the testing of wastewater from airports.”
ACI Europe Director General Olivier Jankovec said: “We are once again plunging back into a patchwork of unjustified and uncoordinated travel restrictions, which have no basis in scientific fact. Clearly we still have to learn the painful lessons of the past years. These travel restrictions do not work and current arrangements for EU coordination have failed once again.” ✈
