Europe 1 with AFP 6:50 p.m., December 31, 2022

“Scientifically unjustified” and “uncoordinated” controls.

The European branch of the Airports Council International (ACI Europe) denounces the new protocols imposed on travelers from China implemented in many European countries.

The European branch of the Airports Council International (ACI Europe) denounced on Saturday the "scientifically unjustified" and "uncoordinated" controls imposed by several European countries on passengers coming from China.

While Beijing abruptly ended its draconian "zero Covid" policy, leading to an explosion of contaminations in the country, France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, in unison with the United States or even South Korea, decided this week to impose a Covid test on travelers coming from China.

A “chaotic” juxtaposition of health restrictions

"These unilateral actions go against all the experience and achievements of the last three years (...) (these checks) are neither scientifically justified nor based on a" real risk, estimated in a press release ACI Europe .

The powerful federation, which represents more than 500 airports in 55 European countries, had already fiercely denounced in 2020, at the start of the pandemic, the “chaotic” juxtaposition of different health restrictions depending on the country, then their lifting in dispersed order.

"We are plunging back into a patchwork of unjustified and uncoordinated travel restrictions (...). These travel restrictions are not working and the EU's coordination arrangements have failed once again", lamented its director general Olivier Jankovec.

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The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), one of the EU's health agencies, deemed on Thursday "unjustified" systematic screening of travelers, given the level of immunity in Europe and the presence on the mainland of the same variants as in China.

As for identifying possible new variants that may emerge in China, increased surveillance with genomic sequencing "can be done by means such as testing airport sewage, without the need to test travelers. “, pleads ACI Europe.

The precautionary measures taken by several states are "understandable" in view of the lack of information provided by Beijing, however estimated the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.