The announcement by more than 40 countries yesterday that they would ban flights and travellers from the UK because of an emerging, more infectious variant of the Covid-19 virus shows the urgent need for systematic testing of travellers, IATA has said.
Rafael Schvartzman, IATA’s regional vice president, Europe, said, “Governments must cooperate to put mutually recognised testing capacity in place so that borders can remain open to the vast majority of healthy passengers.
“Covid-19 is likely to be with us for some time, so rather than travel bans, governments must adopt more flexible and practical policies to manage the risks in a way that enables people to safely work and travel. 'Test, test and test again' has been the mantra of the WHO for almost a year now, and we implore governments to act on this advice.”