After the end of the foreclosure: First flight from China landed in Vienna

The Austrian Airlines plane from Shanghai landed at Vienna-Schwechat Airport at around 6:25 a.m. Because of the strong corona spread in the country, Austria, like many other countries, has introduced a corona test obligation for travelers from the People’s Republic.

Passengers must present a negative PCR test before departure, which must not be older than 48 hours. Almost all passengers were able to show a valid PCR test at check-in and thus met the official requirements, said an Austrian Airlines spokeswoman for the APA. “Only seven of the 230 passengers could not produce a PCR test with the required validity and were therefore unable to board the flight.”

Compulsory testing in several countries worldwide

Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens) announced the obligation to test on Thursday. He joined the decisions of several governments worldwide. So far, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, the USA, Israel, Japan and Portugal have declared corona tests to be necessary. Morocco even went a step further and banned all entry from China, regardless of the nationality of travelers.

Health system completely overloaded

A massive corona wave is currently rolling through the country. According to media reports, the Chinese health system and crematoria are completely overwhelmed. According to estimates by the London-based data processor Airfinity, 2.5 million people are currently newly infected in China every day, and 16,600 die every day. According to this, there are already 209,000 dead. With such a large outbreak, the emergence of new Covid variants is also feared. Numerous countries – including Austria – test the wastewater from aircraft coming from China for new virus variants.

Rauch is not worried about the corona situation in Austria getting worse. In contrast to China, there is broad immunity in Austria against the omicron variant, which also dominates in China, he recently emphasized. Germany is more cautious here. The Robert Koch Institute describes China as a “virus variant area in which a worrying virus variant threatens to appear”. The German government also advises against “unnecessary” trips to the Asian country.

No big wave of travel from China expected

Despite the opening, no major wave of travel from China is expected for the time being. The number of international flights is still limited, the tickets are very expensive. The Chinese authorities also want to issue or extend passports again, but primarily only for business and study trips. It would be months before more Chinese arrived in this country, forecast Secretary of State for Tourism Susanne Kraus-Winkler (ÖVP).

Before the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020, Europe was a popular travel destination for China. According to Eurostat data, Chinese citizens accounted for more than 22 million overnight stays in the EU-27 in the last year before the corona virus, 2019. In 2019, 1.42 million overnight stays in Austria were attributable to Chinese tourists. Around a million of these, i.e. two thirds, were attributable to the summer season.

China’s opening up came a month after China abruptly backed away from its strict zero-Covid policy. Since the beginning of 2020, Beijing had tried to get the disease under control with lockdowns for tens of millions, cordoned off cities, mass tests and forced quarantines. After new omicron variants had nevertheless spread explosively, the second-largest economy came under increasing pressure and people protested against the strict measures, China’s government announced its zero-tolerance policy on December 7th.