AIR TRAVELLERS ‘NOT HIGH RISK’
Aer Lingus welcomes advice from watchdog
GUIDANCE from t he European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control that air travellers should not be considered high risk for spreading Covid-19 has been welcomed by airlines.
Aer Lingus said the ECDC update will give confidence to governments and citizens that air travel is a safe activity.
Guidelines the ECDC published this week say that travellers should ‘not be considered as a high-risk population, nor treated as contacts of Covid-19 cases, unless they have been in known contact with a confirmed positive case’.
Instead they ‘should be treated in the same way as local residents and be subject to the same regulations or recommendations as applied to the local population’.
Aer Lingus said yesterday the EU health watchdog’s advice ‘will give additional confidence to governments and citizens that air travel is a safe activity, and that every step has been taken by airlines and airports to ensure the safety
‘Positive first steps’
of customers’. Under the current EU traffic light system for air travel, everyone coming into the country, aside from green regions, is expected to restrict their movements for 14 days unless they meet certain criteria such as producing a negative Covid-19 test.
The ECDC is the organisation which designates regions in Europe certain colours under this system.
However, its guidelines said that once Covid-19 is present in the community ‘ imported cases are likely to contribute little to the ongoing spread’ and that ‘ air travellers should be considered as a mostly non- symptomatic subpopulation with a low probability of being infected’ with the virus.
It continues: ‘ Imported cases account for a very small proportion of all detected cases and are unlikely to significantly i ncrease the rate of transmission.
‘ The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 [Covid-19] in travellers i s estimated likely to be lower than the prevalence in the general population or among contacts of a confirmed case.
‘Entry screening, quarantine and border closures for incoming travellers are unlikely to prevent the introduction of SARS- CoV-2 into a community, although it might delay it for a short period of time.’ They added that air passengers should not be c o nsi dered a ‘high-risk popul ation’ unless they had been a close contact of a confirmed case. The guidelines also recommend harmonisation among member states and that when there is travel between countries with similar levels of Covid infection that there should not be testing or quarantining of passengers before or after arrival.
It said that member states should always admit their own nationals and EU citizens and their family members resident in their territory and should facilitate swift transit through their territories.
It also advised against quarantining or systematic testing of air travellers for Covid-19 ‘in the current epidemiological situation’.
Aer Lingus yesterday said other moves such as increased testing availability at airports and the implementation of the traffic light system are all ‘positive first steps’ towards facilitating i ncreased international travel in 2021.
‘Ultimately a rapid antigen testing regime needs to be the next step as only a rapid, affordable and scalable testing solution will facilitate a meaningful increase in safe international travel,’ said the airline in a statement.
Rapid antigen testing is not available i n testing f acilities at Irish airports at the moment.
The Government and NPHET chiefs have advised against non essential travel over Christmas – with Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan repeatedly warning of the risk that i nternational travel into Ireland poses in terms of Covid-19 transmission.
Two weeks ago, he said that there is the potential of ‘re- seeding’ Covid-19 cases as a result of international travel as there is no legal enforcement of people restricting their movements or quarantining on arrival.