France and Britain on Friday joined a growing number of countries around the world to introduce screening of passengers traveling from China after Beijing lifted its Covid-19 restrictions, a caveat which the WHO said was “understandable”. AFP reports.

Despite a recommendation by the European health agency, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), screening in the EU was “unwarranted” given Europe’s level of immunity and the presence of the same Covid-19 variants as China, Paris and Madrid decided to take control measures.

Three years after the first cases of the coronavirus appeared in Wuhan (center), China ended its draconian “zero Covid” policy on December 7.

As of 2020, this policy has largely protected the population from the virus through widespread testing and strict movement monitoring, but at the cost of mandatory isolation and quarantine of newly identified cases.

The extreme measures, which have largely isolated China, the world’s second-largest economy, from the rest of the world have dealt it a major blow and sparked unusual demonstrations of discontent in November.

Since the lifting of restrictions, Chinese hospitals have been overwhelmed by a flood of patients, most of whom are elderly and vulnerable because they have not been vaccinated, and many pharmacies have run out of fever-reducing drugs.

Europe is divided

Despite the resurgence of the epidemic, on January 8 the authorities will lift the mandatory quarantine upon arrival in China and allow the Chinese to travel abroad after three years of frustration.

As a precaution, the United States and several other countries, including Italy, Japan and Israel, have announced they will require negative tests for passengers arriving from China. On Friday, South Korea adopted a similar decision that will be in effect until February 2023.

France and Britain also announced they would require travelers leaving China to provide a negative test less than two days before departure. This decision will come into effect from January 5 in Great Britain and from the first days of January in France.

Spain plans to require a “negative test” or “full vaccination schedule” for travelers arriving from China.

Illustrating the divisions in Europe over how to respond to the new situation in China, Germany called for surveillance of Covid variants at European airports but not mandatory testing. On Friday, Switzerland said it had no plans to tighten controls on travelers from China.

The precautionary measures taken by several countries are “understandable” given the lack of information provided by Beijing, said the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “In the absence of full information from China, it is clear that countries are taking measures that they believe will protect their populations,” he said.

Beijing has denied that its statistics on Covid progress have always been transparent.

“Since the outbreak of the epidemic, China has been sharing reliable information and data with the international community, including the WHO, in an open and transparent manner,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin.

As of Friday, China’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported just 5,515 new cases and one death. However, these numbers are no longer true, as mass screening is no longer mandatory.