Unilateral action by countries to require testing for arriving airline passengers from China has been criticised by airports body ACI Europe.
People flying from China to England will be asked to take a pre-departure test from Thursday (January 5), while some arriving passengers will be tested for the virus from January 8 “to enhance existing measures to monitor for new variants”.
The government said it was working with the devolved nations to ensure this is implemented UK-wide as soon as possible, even though there are no direct flights from China to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
The move followed similar action introduced by other countries including the US, Spain, Italy, Japan, Korea, India and Malaysia.
But the unilateral actions were described by ACI Europe as being “at odds with all the experience and evidence gained over the past three years”.
The airports trade body added: “The ineffectiveness of international travel restrictions in preventing the spread of Covid-19 and its multiple Variants of Concern has been unequivocally recognised by both the European Centre for Disease Prevention (ECDC) and Control and the World Health Organisation.
“Testing travellers from China and/or imposing other restrictions for travellers from this country is neither scientifically justified nor risk based, as expressly stated in recent days by the ECDC.”
The focus should instead be on increasing genomic sequencing to be able to identify possible new Covid variants and related surveillance.
Such an approach does not require the testing of travellers but can be achieved by means such as the testing of wastewater from airports, and was urged by EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides in a letter to EU member states.
ACI Europe director general Olivier Jankovec said: “We are once again plunging back into a patchwork of unjustified and uncoordinated travel restrictions, which have no basis in scientific fact.
“Clearly we still have to learn the painful lessons of the past years. These travel restrictions do not work and current arrangements for EU co-ordination have failed once again.”
Meanwhile, concerns have been raised that travellers from Hong Kong will not be subjected to pre-departure testing, creating a potential loophole in the new measures. Only passengers from mainland China are expected to have to take a pre-departure test as the country lifts its International travel restrictions from January 8.
Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood told the Telegraph: “It makes no sense to exclude Hong Kong from these measures, given China is removing all interior travel restrictions at the same time the overseas travel ban is lifted.”
The Foreign Office said: “The UK has introduced Covid-19 related border measures for people arriving into England from mainland China. These restrictions do not apply to anyone travelling from Hong Kong.”