Walsh as well as Airports Council International (ACI Europe) slammed the move as “scientifically unjustified”.
ACI Europe said in a statement that the unilateral actions were at odds with all the experience and evidence gained over the past three years, and it comes as China threatens reciprocal travel restrictions.
“The ineffectiveness of international travel restrictions in preventing the spread of Covid and its multiple variants of concern has been unequivocally recognised by both the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and the World Health Organisation,” it said.
Walsh pointed out that “the virus is already circulating widely within their [the countries’] borders”.
“It is extremely disappointing to see this knee-jerk reinstatement of measures that have proven ineffective over the last three years,” he said.
“Research undertaken around the arrival of the Omicron variant concluded that putting barriers in the way of travel made no difference to the peak spread of infections. At most, restrictions delayed that peak by a few days. If a new variant emerges in any part of the world, the same situation would be expected.”
Walsh said governments should listen to the advice of experts which urge against travel restrictions.
“We have the tools to manage Covid without resorting to ineffective measures that cut off international connectivity, damage economies and destroy jobs,” he continued.
“Governments must base their decisions on science facts rather than science politics.”
Olivier Jankovec, director general of ACI Europe, added: “We are once again plunging back into a patchwork of unjustified and uncoordinated travel restrictions, which have no basis in scientific fact.
“Clearly we still have to learn the painful lessons of the past years. These travel restrictions do not work and current arrangements for EU coordination have failed once again.”
ACI Europe said the focus should rather be on increasing genomic sequencing to be able to identify possible new Covid variants and related surveillance as such an approach does not require the testing of travellers but can be achieved by means such as the testing of wastewater from airports.
Walsh also urged the Chinese government to remove the need for pre-departure Covid testing for those traveling to China.
