Sweden announced on Thursday January 5 that it would request negative Covid tests for all passengers coming from China, due to the outbreak of cases in this country.
"
The Swedish government decided this [Thursday] morning to impose temporary restrictions on travel from China
," said Jakob Forssmed, Minister of Health at a press conference.
Jakob Forssmed added that travelers will need to show a negative test result regardless of their vaccination status, but some passengers, such as Swedish citizens and European Union residents, will be exempt.
This new measure will be applied from January 7th.
A measure prepared since the beginning of the week
The objective “
is to delay the potential introduction of a new variant of the virus
” affirmed the minister.
The Swedish Public Health Agency had requested earlier in the week that the government prepare this measure because of
the “uncertainty
” linked “
to the variants circulating in China
”.
This Wednesday, the EU agreed that testing for passengers coming from China was "strongly encouraged" in member states, after a meeting initiated by Sweden - which took over the presidency of the European Union at the start of the new year.
Read alsoCovid-19: what we can say about the current epidemic wave in China
Italy, Spain and France are already imposing Covid tests for arrivals from China.
Germany and Belgium in particular have announced that they will do the same.
The United States, for its part, requires them from Thursday.
Beijing on Tuesday condemned the imposition of Covid tests around the world on its nationals, deeming them "
unacceptable
" and threatening "
countermeasures
".
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