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More and more EU countries are introducing mandatory tests for travelers from China because of the corona wave there.
Now it’s suddenly fast. Germany has already reacted. Just like Austria, Sweden, Greece or Belgium. They all decided on Thursday to introduce mandatory testing for people entering China because of the corona wave there. It was only on Wednesday evening that health experts from the 27 EU countries strongly recommended such a test. France, Italy and Spain had already decided on measures independently beforehand. Anyone who tests positive must be in quarantine.
In Switzerland, too, the call for stricter measures to protect the population from possible virus mutations is getting louder. However, the Federal Office of Public Health (BAG) still sees no urgent need for action. The federal government is based on the EU, the BAG had always said. The recommendations of the EU meeting would now be examined in detail, it said on request.
“Don’t wait until it burns again”
In the past few days, politicians from different camps had pointed out the urgency. “We must not make the same mistake as three years ago,” said SVP faction leader Thomas Aeschi (43) to Blick. The President of the National Council’s Health Commission plans to submit an application to SP Federal Councilor Alain Berset’s (50) health department next week.
“We can’t wait until there’s a fire again,” agrees center politician Lorenz Hess (61). The health care system is already at risk today: “We don’t have to aggravate the situation any further.” It is therefore wrong to wait any longer.
Authorities do not assume an increased risk
After almost three years of mass tests, closed borders, travel bans and lockdowns, the Chinese regime surprisingly announced the end of the zero-Covid policy in early December. Since then, an estimated 250 million people have contracted the virus. That is almost every fifth of the 1.4 billion inhabitants. There is no reliable data on this because the authorities no longer publish any information on this.
In Switzerland, however, those responsible have so far been relaxed. So far, it can be assumed that “the current infection process in China poses an increased risk for the Swiss health system, since omicron variants have also been circulating here for some time,” explains the cantonal health directors’ conference.
The vast majority of people in Switzerland have been vaccinated, have had an infection or both and therefore have a high level of protection against a serious course of an illness.