The EU has met this morning to analyze the response to the serious health crisis that the covid is causing in the Asian giant
The Ministry of Health has recommended this Thursday to the Travellers whose destination or origin is Chinawhere an explosion of covid cases is taking place, “who have the complete vaccination and that they maintain the measures of caution“. Full vaccination refers to the first two doses, but in any case it is advisable to have the memory pricks.
Spain has ruled out, for the moment, imposing higher restrictions, as the US, Italy and Japan are doing, which have announced that they will require negative tests to travelers from the Asian giant, to try to prevent the covid from getting out of control again within its borders given the possibility of a new more infective variant in China.
The Spanish Government has made the recommendation to travelers who have China as their destination or origin after a meeting of the Health Security Committee (HSC) of the European Union in which the member countries have analyzed the exponential increase in covid cases that is taking place in the Asian country due to the end of strict restrictions policy that has kept the huge territory almost isolated from the virus. After ending most of the isolation measures, the pathogen is freely transmitted in a population of millions of inhabitants no acquired immunity in the absence of previous infections and without the protection provided by vaccines authorized in Western countries.
For this reason, health authorities and experts are concerned about the possible appearance of one or new variants in a country that has almost a fifth of the world’s population and that, after the announcement that as of January 8 it will become end to mandatory quarantines for travelers entering the country, you may receive a barrage of visitors to come and go since a wave of international ticket purchases has been unleashed. However, tourist visas are still not being issued and a negative PCR test carried out at least 48 hours in advance is still required before entering the country.
the variants
In this context, Spanish epidemiologists consulted by EL PERIÓDICO consider it “unlikely” that the epidemic outbreak in China could reactivate the covid in the EU given that the natural tendency of the virus is to develop more infective variants but less serious since the European population has a high immunity both acquired and by vaccination.
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At the European meeting, Spain stressed the importance of “continuing on the path of european coordination in health policies”, according to ministerial sources. And the member countries have stressed the importance of continuing with “active surveillance”, including the sequencing of the virus as a “fundamental tool”.
On the other hand, the Spanish Ministry of Health has recalled that, in this context, it is very important that people who have not completed their vaccination regimen do so and that vulnerable people, such as those over 60 years of age and chronically ill or especially vulnerable to covid, come to receive the second booster dose.