The government's Covid ministerial working group will meet on Thursday evening to discuss a ”strong” recommendation from the European Union that all passengers from China, regardless of nationality, should present a negative Covid-19 test on arrival into the EU.
The meeting had been called after EU government health officials met on Wednesday to decide on a common approach to Covid testing for passengers arriving from China.
At that meeting, delegates recommended that member states should require arrivals from China to have a Covid test taken no more than two days before departure. A negative test result would allow the passenger to board the plane.
A decision was also made to recommend that passengers on connections to China should wear face masks.
Finland's Minister of Family Affairs and Social Services Krista Kiuru (SDP) said she is concerned over China's low vaccination rates and travellers from the country bringing new variants with them.
"An unvaccinated population combined with the high spread of the virus could result in the worst types of strains," Kiuru told Yle.
EU member states have also been urged to take random tests on arrivals from China and to test waste water at international airports and from planes arriving from China. Waste water monitoring is already in place in many countries, according to Pasi Mustonen, health expert at the Finnish Mission to the EU.
Member states agreed on further coordination at the EU level as they made decisions. However, the recommendations are non-binding and member states are independently responsible for implementing them.
China has witnessed a sharp rise in the number of new Covid cases since December's lifting of strict pandemic restrictions. The EU now fears that travellers from China could bring new variants that would circumvent the protection offered by existing vaccines.
Finland wants common EU policy
Finnish health ministers are expected to meet Thursday evening to discuss the EU's recommendations.
A few countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia and France have already placed restrictions on travellers arriving from China.
Earlier this week Kiuru said Finland was awaiting a common EU policy to emerge from Wednesday's discussions; mainly a policy on Covid tests for tourists travelling from China.
Concern over Lapland tourism
"During the winter season, tourists coming to Finland mostly head to Lapland. Many Chinese tourists also head there, so pre-testing might be a good idea," said Markku Broas, an infectious disease specialist at the Lapland Hospital District.
"It will determine what kind of variant strain China has. If China is rife with the XBB.1.5 variant, Finland should also require pre-testing of Chinese tourists," Broas added.
The XBB.1.5 variant, the result of combining two different omicron variants, is highly contagious and therefore spreads rapidly around the world. In the United States, for example, about 40 percent of new infections are of this variant.
The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) has not recommended any restrictions for travellers from China to Finland. In an interview with Yle at the end of December, Jari Jalava, THL expert on infectious diseases, pointed out that the spread of viral variants has not been prevented in the past.
