Enlarge image
Incheon Airport, South Korea, requires travelers from China to be tested (picture taken on January 2, 2023)
Photo: YONHAP/EPA
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) announced that anyone traveling to Germany from China needs a negative corona test before starting their journey.
In addition, samples will be taken upon entry to identify virus variants.
Because: After the end of the zero-Covid policy, China is currently experiencing a gigantic corona wave.
The EU had previously recommended tests to its member states, but did not introduce any binding regulations.
Sweden and Belgium are also introducing compulsory testing.
Does this measure even make sense at this point in time?
What advantages does it have?
When asked by the "Science Media Center" - that was before Lauterbach announced mandatory testing - several experts pointed out the limited benefit of this obligation or even considered it inappropriate.
They also see advantages.
On Wednesday, the chairman of the board of the World Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, spoke out in favor of a Europe-wide test requirement for all travelers from China.
“We don't know what's happening in China right now.
The infections are completely uncontrolled," Montgomery told the Rheinische Post.
It cannot be ruled out that new variants from China will find their way to Germany.
"We should be prepared for the worst case and practice prevention," Montgomery is quoted as saying.
What is the goal?
Physicist and modeler
Viola Priesemann
explained that testing can have different goals:
"1.
Reduce the introduction of infections
2. Delay the introduction of new variants or
3. Get an overview of the current variants in China.«
From their point of view, testing in connection with isolation makes particular sense if the target country has or is striving for a low incidence.
"This is currently not the case in Germany," notes the researcher from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen.
According to the Robert Koch Institute, the seven-day incidence of corona in Germany is currently 174.6 reported cases per 100,000 people.
Gérard Krause
, epidemiologist from the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in Braunschweig, "personally doesn't think it's appropriate to introduce entry controls for travelers from China or elsewhere to Covid-19 in the current situation".
And further: »With regard to COVID-19, we have long been in the phase of targeted mitigation or we should finally be aware of it and act accordingly.«
Virologist
Isabella Eckerle
from the University of Geneva in Switzerland believes that sequencing samples from those entering the country makes sense because there is hardly any data available from China itself on the variants circulating there.
However, she emphasizes that nothing unusual or surprising has been discovered in the virus sequences known so far.
She also thinks it is unlikely that an immune escape virus variant is currently developing in China, i.e. a mutant that is particularly good at tricking the immune system despite vaccinations or previous infections.
Because the immunity of the population in China is relatively low.
"Of course it's possible that a new, more worrying variant will emerge, but it could also come from another part of the world from which we get few sequences," says Eckerle.
"Against this background, I do not consider entry restrictions, quarantine or isolation of infected travelers returning from China to be appropriate."
Also epidemiologist
Hajo Zeeb
from the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology in Bremen, is reluctant to make a test mandatory: »New tests for people entering China would certainly show that a possibly not inconsiderable proportion of all those arriving from there are infected.
Nevertheless, in the overall view of the infections that are still present in this country, this would only be a very small part, and it would certainly not trigger a new wave of infections.
The main effort is to test all incoming travelers - and not just those from direct flights - and then to provide isolation options.
Such measures usually only make sense at the beginning of epidemics or pandemics.
At this point, this is no longer the case, except for the individual traveller,
Virologist Eckerle wants permanent structures instead of short-term, isolated efforts.
»One possibility, for example, could be the sequencing of the waste water from the aircraft.
If several countries set up such programs and coordinate them well, then you can get a good overview of the global virus circulation with relatively little investment.«
wbr
