Spain Joins Countries Testing Chinese Arrivals

Spain is the second EU country to announce Covid testing on visitors from China, following similar decisions in Italy, plus the US and India.

Eko Hot Blog reports that arrivals can skip the tests if they are fully vaccinated – and Spain does accept some Chinese vaccines.

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Beijing has announced that it will fully reopen its borders next week for the first time since March 2020.

Its current Covid surge has caused wariness, with reports of hospitals filling up and waves of illness.

Spain is the second EU country after Italy to introduce mandatory screening for Chinese visitors. The UK, South Korea and Israel also announced new testing rules on Friday.

“At the national level, we will implement controls at airports and require travellers from China to present a negative Covid test or be fully vaccinated,” said Spanish health minister Carolina Darias.

On Thursday, the EU’s disease prevention agency has said such measures were not justified in Europe, because of the levels of immunity and the fact that variants spreading in China were already present on the continent.

The World Health Organization, however, has said it was “understandable” that some countries had decided to impose restrictions and urged Beijing to be more forthcoming about its Covid numbers.

China’s foreign ministry said earlier this week that its “epidemic situation” overall was “predictable and under control”.

But the true toll of daily cases and deaths in China is unknown as officials have stopped requiring cases to be reported, and changed classifications for Covid deaths.

South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said that travellers from China would need to have a negative PCR or antigen test before boarding flights to South Korea.

They will also need to undergo a PCR test within the first day of their arrival in South Korea.

Israel, meanwhile, has ordered foreign airlines not to allow people to travel from China unless they have tested negative – and asked its own citizens to avoid unnecessary travel there.

Not all countries have announced controls. Germany has joined Australia, France, and Portugal in saying there will be no new rules yet.

However, Germany’s health minister has said the country is seeking a co-ordinated system to monitor variants across European airports.

China’s decision this week to reopen its borders on 8 January marks the last stage of the country’s controversial zero-Covid policy, which President Xi Jinping had personally endorsed.

As the rest of the world transitioned to living with the virus, Beijing maintained an eradication policy involving mass testing and stringent lockdown.