France, Spain and UK to introduce Covid-19 curbs on China but Ireland holds off for now

The Government is holding off on introducing fresh Covid-19 travel restrictions on incoming travellers from China on foot of European advice and is not currently considering any other population-wide curbs.

France and Spain on Friday became the latest European countries to announce restrictions on people arriving from China, where Covid-19 cases are surging following the easing of restrictions.

The UK is also set to introduce controls, according to British media. Passengers arriving in Britain from China will require a negative test for Covid-19, The Times and The Telegraph reported on Friday saying prime minister Rishi Sunak has weighed in to take the step.

Confirming their decision, the French health and transport ministries said travellers from China to France must provide a negative Covid-19 test result less than 48 hours before departure.

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The test will be required on all flights from China, including flights with stopovers. Travellers on airplanes arriving from China will also have to wear masks.

France did not set a start date for the measures but will publish a government decree and notify EU member states, the ministries said.

From January 1st, France will also carry out random PCR Covid tests upon arrival on some travellers coming from China, a government official told reporters.

Italy on Thursday urged the rest of the EU to ensure passengers coming from China were tested for the disease and quarantined if needed. The US, Japan, Taiwan and India have also announced stricter measures for those intending to travel from China such as the requirement for negative test results.

The European Centres for Disease Control (ECDC) said that longer-term travel measures can have “unintended negative consequences” such as economic impacts and discrimination. The agency said that a surge in Covid-19 cases in China was unlikely to have a major impact on the situation across the EU and so any related measures at this time were “unjustified”.

The European Commission said, however, that it remains vigilant and “will be ready to use the emergency brake if necessary”.

‘No need’

A senior Government source said “Ireland will be following the ECDC on this” and that the ECDC have communicated there is “no need” for additional restrictions at the present moment.

Another Government source said the EU Health Security Committee met on Thursday and “no additional recommendations” were made.

Germany and several other EU states have argued that the situation does not warrant a change in their national coronavirus policies.

The heightened fears around the coronavirus have arisen after Beijing scrapped its zero-Covid policies, which has created a wave of disease infecting millions of people in China each day. There have been some concerns that if a new variant begins circulating in China, which there are no current indications of, authorities there may be slow to communicate this to the EU.

Sampling

Dr Anne Moore, a member of Ireland’s Covid-19 Advisory Group, said wastewater sampling from incoming planes from China would allow experts to determine the existence of any new variant. She told RTÉ's Morning Ireland that testing passengers coming into Ireland from China is not going “to give us much benefit because Covid is already very prevalent here”.

She said that instead “testing wastewater from planes arriving from China into the EU will tell us through genomic surveillance how different any variants are that are coming from China and therefore give us a very quick and fast ability to respond to any new variants that might be introduced to the EU”.

She said by doing so, “we can get a heads up if there are different variants coming in from China”.

“We don’t know what is really circulating in China at the moment and it is really important that we figure that out as soon as possible.” - Additional reporting Reuters