(Updated with WHO-China videoconference)
(Reuters) – Spain, Malaysia and South Korea in turn announced on Friday their willingness to restore health controls at borders in the face of the next reopening of China despite the explosion of COVID-19 cases, the Beijing authorities denouncing “discriminatory” measures.
After the abandonment of the “zero COVID-19” policy in early December under the pressure of growing popular protest in China, restrictions on international travel will be lifted on January 8, but the epidemic outbreak in the country worries internationally.
While the European Union failed on Thursday to adopt a common strategy for passengers arriving from China – finding itself divided as in the early hours of the pandemic three years ago – Spain announced on Friday that it would condition their entry on its territory upon presentation of a negative test for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus or proof of completion of a complete vaccination schedule.
Italy has already imposed mandatory screening for travelers arriving from China since this week.
Madrid has therefore now joined Rome in the camp of supporters of a generalization of these controls on a European scale, while Paris, Berlin and Lisbon have deemed these new restrictions superfluous and Vienna has underlined the economic benefits to be expected from a return of Chinese tourists to Europe.
Beyond the EU, Malaysia announced on Friday a systematic temperature check of all travelers arriving on its territory, regardless of their origin, accompanied by SARS-CoV-2 screening tests in the event of fever. or other suggestive symptoms.
BEIJING DENOUNCES “DISCRIMINATORY” MEASURES
South Korea also announced on Friday that it would impose, from next week, mandatory screening tests before boarding as well as on arrival in its territory, for travelers arriving from China.
Comparable measures have already been announced in the United States, India, Japan and Taiwan.
The official Chinese tabloid Global Times denounced in an article published Thursday evening “unfounded and discriminatory” restrictions.
“The real intention is to sabotage the three-year COVID-19 control efforts and attack the country’s system,” reads the English-language publication, which follows the editorial line of the Party’s official media. Chinese Communist People’s Daily and the New China News Agency.
For the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, these measures are on the other hand “understandable” in view of the absence of detailed information provided by the Chinese authorities.
“In the absence of detailed information from China, it is understandable that countries around the world are taking the measures they deem necessary to protect their people,” he wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
The Chinese National Health Commission announced last Sunday that it was stopping the publication of daily epidemiological reports of contaminations and deaths, without giving an explanation.
The sincerity of the data provided by China since the start of the epidemic was already the subject of many reservations, the Beijing authorities having reported only 5,247 deaths attributed to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic (for a population total of 1.4 billion inhabitants), against nearly 158,000 deaths in France or more than a million in the United States for example.
STRENGTHENING GENOMIC SEQUENCING OF VIRUSES IN CIRCULATION
Nearly 9,000 people are dying every day from COVID-19 in China at the moment, with the death toll nearing 100,000 since the start of the month and the lifting of restrictions, according to British health data analytics firm Airfinity. limitations.
China’s National Health Commission – the equivalent of the Ministry of Health – reported in a statement that Chinese experts held talks Friday via video conference with WHO officials on the epidemic situation. Other exchanges are planned, she specifies.
This combination of an epidemic outbreak and a lack of reliable data in China, associated with the prospect of the imminent reopening of the country’s borders, in particular raises fears of the appearance of new variants.
In a letter to the Ministers of Health of the Twenty-Seven dated Thursday, a copy of which Reuters was able to consult, the European Commissioner for Health Stella Kyriakides recommended an amplification of the sequencing operations of the viral genome in positive samples as well as a reinforced monitoring of waste water, in order to allow early detection of a possible new variant.
But contrary to this European recommendation, France will drastically reduce the capacities of the network responsible for sequencing the genome of the viruses found in the positive samples, which makes it possible to identify new mutations, or even to identify the appearance of a new variant.
For many experts, such approaches would be preferable to strengthening border controls, which are not a particularly effective response.
The American epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, of the University of Minnesota, thus echoed the reservations expressed Thursday by French specialists.
“Closing borders or testing at borders really makes very little difference and will just slow down the outcome by a few days,” he explained.
“But these measures seem essential from a political point of view. It seems to me that every government feels that it will be accused of not having done what is necessary to protect its population if it does not take such measures. “
(Reuters offices, French version Myriam Rivet, editing by Sophie Louet)