International Air Transport Association urges governments to ease Covid-19 travel restrictions
GOVERNMENTS around the world should ease travel restrictions that were imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic, the International Air Transport Association (Iata) said this week.
“Iata urged governments to accelerate relaxation of travel restrictions as Covid-19 continues to evolve from the pandemic to endemic stage,” the statement read.
Specifically, Iata called on the authorities to remove all travel restrictions for people who were “fully vaccinated” with vaccines approved by the World Health Organization, remove travel bans and accelerate the easing of travel restrictions in recognition that travellers posed no greater risk for spreading the coronavirus than already existed in the general population.
“With the experience of the Omicron variant, there is mounting scientific evidence and opinion opposing the targeting of travellers with restrictions and country bans to control the spread of Covid-19. The measures have not worked,” Iata’s director-general, Willie Walsh, said.
The fact that the Omicron variant was present in all parts of the world meant travel did not increase the risk of additional infections, Walsh said.
Walsh warned travel restrictions during the pandemic had created an unfavourable and costly situation for travellers and travel carriers.
“We have two years of experience to guide us on a simplified and coordinated path to normal travel when Covid-19 is endemic. That normality must recognize that travellers, with very few exceptions, will present no greater risk than exists in the general population,” he said. |