The European Union’s health agency said Thursday (Dec 29) it believed the introduction of mandatory Covid screenings of travelers from China was “unjustified,” despite a surge in cases in China.
Such measures are not necessary for the EU as a whole, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said in a statement.
However, the ECDC said it did not currently believe the surge in cases in China would impact the epidemiological situation in the EU “given higher population immunity in the EU/EEA, as well as the prior emergence and subsequent replacement of variants currently circulating in China”.
The agency said in a statement that the BF7 omicron variant prevalent in China was already circulating in the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA) and that its threat had not significantly grown.
The European Commission convened a meeting of the EU Health Security Committee Thursday to discuss possible measures.
India, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, the United States, and South Korea have introduced mandatory Covid tests on travelers arriving from China.
