UK, France, Spain to impose mandatory COVID tests for travellers from China

The United Kingdom is set to begin to require passengers arriving from China to provide a negative COVID test before they enter the country.

According to The Telegraph, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak decided to take the precautionary approach due to surge in China’s COVID cases, and following the country’s decision to drop its strict zero-COVID policies.

Travellers from China will only be allowed to fly into the UK if they test negative within 48 hours of departure and anyone taking a PCR test in the UK will be asked if they have recently travelled to China.

UK members of parliament and ministers reportedly came under pressure from the public to reintroduce travel restrictions for arrivals from China, even though scientific advisers said the reintroduction of travel tests was not justified because the continent is well protected.

France has also reportedly said passengers arriving from China must present a negative COVID test before boarding flights.

According to Bloomberg, French authorities said random PCR tests will be carried out on arrivals from China at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, starting on Sunday.

Genetic sequencing will be done on positive cases in a bid to identify potential new variants of the virus.

Furthermore, the French government advised against non-essential travel to China.

Spain and Israel are also reported to have said they would require passengers from China to have negative COVID tests.

Other countries that have imposed mandatory COVID-19 tests on travellers from China include Italy, United States, Japan, India, South Korea, Taiwan, and Malaysia,

Meanwhile, the Nigerian government has said it is not yet considering placing COVID restrictions on travellers from China.

Mukhtar Mohammed, national coordinator of the presidential steering committee (PSC), told TheCable on Friday that there is currently no evidence to show that any action needs to be taken.

“But if we see any red flags, we will be able to consider what to do. So far, we have not seen any red flags to necessitate us to take action against any country,” he added.