Differences in measures to limit travel highlight the EU's haphazard response.
It didn't take long for Europe to abandon the pandemic's biggest lesson. The principle of collective response to threats, which is one of the main postulates of the EU Health Union, was ignored at the first sign of the problem, writes Politico.
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All it took was a surge in COVID cases in China for several EU countries to go their own way and introduce travel measures that the EU bloc's scientific experts criticized as “unwarranted”.
Amidst China abandoning its “zero COVID-19” policy, countries such as the US and Japan have tightened border controls for travelers from China.
Italy, once one of the hardest hit on the continent, has become the first EU country to take action, introducing mandatory testing for travelers arriving from China, leaving the EU scrambling to get ahead of another patchy bloc-wide response that marked some of the first days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the French Le Figaro writes, the country is introducing a number of medical measures for travelers from China. First, all passengers from China, both direct and connecting flights, will have to present a negative test less than 48 hours before departure. Second, wearing a mask will be mandatory on all flights from China.
Returning to the situation in Europe in general, Thursday's EU Security Committee meeting saw countries decide not to take any joint action on travel, with the Commission tweeting that “coordinating national responses to serious cross-border threats to health is extremely important.”
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But that hasn't stopped Spain from introducing its own measures, with the health ministry announcing on Friday that travelers arriving from China must be fully vaccinated or test negative.
Countries such as Italy, the US, Japan, and now Spain, fear that China could become a breeding ground for new options. But the current scientific opinion is that this is unlikely, given that China is far behind when it comes to variants, and those present in China will not be able to compete with strains circulating outside the country.
But this does not prevent the political dispute in the EU from starting.
As Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Maloney called on the EU to take joint action, recognizing that Italy's action alone “cannot be fully effective unless it is acted upon by the whole EU”, she was joined by prominent EU parliamentarians. Manfred Weber, head of the European Parliament's center-right bloc from the European People's Party, called for bloc-wide mandatory testing for travelers from China.
Read also: British analysts believe that 9,000 people die from the coronavirus every day in China
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European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides told health ministers in a letter sent Thursday evening that the situation is “evolving.” She, as well as the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Ghebreyesus, say aboutthe lack of reliable epidemiological data coming from China.
