The Public Health Agency (FHM) has proposed on Tuesday that the government should prepare for the requirement of a negative covid test for travelers from China. The authority states that a great deal is unclear about the infection situation in China.
Ali Mirazimi, adjunct professor and vaccine researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Solna, agrees with that description.
– Requiring negative covid tests is a precautionary measure that is based on a hypothetical basis, he tells TT.
He states that the effect may be marginal. One reason is that no more than a handful of countries in Europe so far require travelers from China to be tested.
– Then a stopped Chinese person can go on to Germany and infect me if I am on a business trip there – and then I bring the infection home to Sweden.
Death figures are not reported
Information on how many are affected by covid in China is missing, as well as whether they need intensive care and ventilators. Death figures are not reported.
– We only know what the Chinese want to report, says Ali Mirazimi.
TT: Can travelers from China carry a new, unknown variant of the covid virus?
– We don’t know, but in the last year, omicron variants have spread uncontrollably in Europe and the world. The probability that a much worse variant will appear in China is extremely small.
– But there is a risk that a new variant will escape our covid tests. It is not certain that they will work.
Turn back the clock
The Public Health Agency bases its proposal on the unclear infection situation in China. By introducing a requirement for a negative test, the risk of new variants spreading in Sweden is reduced, according to the authority.
– Yes, if we turn back the clock to February 2020, we did not test the tourists from Italy who then brought covid to Sweden. Certainly the test requirement can have an effect, even if it is marginal, says vaccine researcher Ali Mirazimi.
3 questions about the Covid situation in China: