SSince China abruptly abandoned the zero-Covid strategy, a wave of infections has been sweeping the country. Several countries, including the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, and EU countries France, Italy and Spain, have introduced or announced entry restrictions for passengers from China. Travelers must present a negative test prior to departure or will be tested upon arrival. Morocco has banned all entry from China.
The German government considers stricter entry rules to be “not yet necessary,” said Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) on Friday. This Wednesday, the member states want to discuss a joint strategy on how to react to the infection process in China. The European Union has already offered China free vaccine doses to contain the wave of infections, a spokesman confirmed on Tuesday.
The German medical officers called for a uniform, EU-wide test requirement for all travelers from China. The chairman of the Federal Association of Physicians in the Public Health Service, Johannes Nießen, said that in the event of an explosive spread like the one now in China, mutations are to be expected. You have to prepare for that. Specifically, he demanded that all travelers from China have to undergo a rapid test after landing, and if the result is positive, a PCR test should follow, and those infected should have to isolate themselves.
Epidemiologist Stöhr: Fear of new variants unfounded
The virologist and epidemiologist Klaus Stöhr, on the other hand, considers entry restrictions to be “not necessary, proportionate, effective or practicable”. The number of people arriving from China is “ridiculous” compared to the infected people in Germany and Europe, he told the FAZ. Since the population here is also largely immune to the virus through infection or vaccination, no wave of infection is to be expected. In Germany, for example, only around nine percent of those infected with respiratory diseases currently have corona, while around two thirds have the flu.
Fear of new variants from China is also unfounded. They would mainly develop where many people are immune to the existing variants – i.e. in Europe or North America, said Stöhr. In China, on the other hand, the existing variants would probably spread due to the lack of immunization. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control shares this assessment. Accordingly, there is currently no evidence of new variants in China. “The variants that are circulating in China are already circulating in the EU, and as such do not pose a challenge to the immune response of citizens of the European Union and European Economic Area,” it said in a statement on Tuesday.
