Govt. under pressure to abolish quarantine after report shows it’s pretty pointless

International aviation bodies are urging European governments to immediately abolish quarantine measures and other travel restrictions on the grounds that they don’t do any good once the virus is already widespread.

A new joint report by the European aviation body EASA and the European Centre for Disease Prevention & Control argues that air travellers account for less than one percent of all detected Covid-19.

It also claims that travellers are not ‘high risk’ and they don’t significantly increase the rate of virus transmission.

Olivier Jankovec, Director General of airport body ACI Europe said the report shows that quarantines are ‘essentially politically-driven, non-risk-based measures which bear no relation to what is actually needed to safeguard public health’.

"As such, quarantines fail the test of proportionality, a key principle of EU law – particularly since there are no equivalent measures at land borders," he said. "This has resulted in unprecedented limitations to the freedom of movement and the freedom to provide services. We call on national governments to immediately abolish their quarantine restrictions and restore freedom of movement for European citizens."

The EASA/ECDC report suggested 14-day quarantines are effective only where a country has achieved full control over the virus and reduced transmission levels to close to zero, and only then for travellers entering from countries where the virus keeps circulating.

This was a belief apparently supported by the UK’s Chief Medical Officer earlier this year, who is understood to have told Prime Minister Boris Johnson that closing the UK borders wouldn’t make any material difference to the number of coronavirus cases since they were already so high.
Airlines are now pushing for rapid pre-departure testing of all air passengers to replace quarantines on arrival.

So far, 102 airports which handle 47% of passenger traffic in Europe have deployed testing facilities under the supervision of health and aviation authorities.

"Rapid testing which utilizes the latest technologies available and meets the high sensitivity and sensibility criteria established by ECDC can help restore predictability, reignite passenger confidence and thus reestablish flight connectivity for European passengers", said
Thomas Reynaert, Managing Director, Airlines for Europe

"Testing technologies are evolving quickly, and we stand ready to work with EASA, the ECDC and national governments to implement the most efficient and effective methods to get Europe moving again", said Montserrat Barriga, Director General, European Regions Airline Association.

"Rapid testing of passengers for Covid-19 opens the door to restarting air travel by eliminating quarantine. And the public agrees: some 65% of travellers surveyed suggest quarantine should not apply to passengers who have tested negative,"  said Rafael Schvartzman, IATA’s Regional Vice President for Europe.

"The EASA/ECDC protocol makes it clear that quarantine is not an effective measure in the present circumstances. And it is important that the protocol should also be applied to remove the temporary travel restrictions on non-essential travel into the EU from third countries."