[nffc]

Requiring a negative test is probably as far as would be reasonable to go.


But as rightly stated, it's not perfect at all. If you got the test whilst they were waiting to get on the plane for a long flight like China you could get someone test negative at the airport but be towards the end of the incubation period, develop symptoms and test positive on landing, and then you'd have an exposure at worst with the whole plane, all of whom might take several days to get the virus or not.



Even a negative test on landing doesn't mean that person will not then get covid from being exposed to it in the end of their trip or on a coach to the airport, within the airport, on the plane etc & then get it over the next few days when they have gone back home and to work, school etc.


Closing the border entirely wouldn't work either as people would have already arrived before then and they could always go through other countries.


The real only solution is mandatory hotel quarantine for all arrivals from China for a wwk or maybe up to 10 days. But this costs and can itself seed infection within the quarantine facility (and has done elsewhere).



If the variants currently circulating in China weren't thought to be the same as those in the rest of the world, and they had something similar to Delta when it emerged, for example, then it would make more sense to increase arrival measures on the area, but largely speaking experience with this has shown it doesn't work.



So the testing will probably just come under the banner of "look like we're doing something" without thinking as to whether those restrictions are going to actually do anything.



Let's also be fair the testing and isolation rules we had didn't stop it either. Nor does it if you're more strict and get any positive tests into isolation facilities and lock down whole communities for months on end like they have been in China. Living with it and managing covid like it's a cold or flu in terms of measures (i.e. manage the symptoms, stay home or away from vulnerable people until you're better, etc) is probably as likely to keep it under sensible control without applying restrictions which are performative and have less benefit compared to inconvenience.



The threat of new variants is hypothetical (in fact there has been a suggested link between a certain antiviral and mutation, when in immunocompromised patients) and less testing has fewer opportunities for sequencing making it harder to detect.



But i'm not sure what could be done about China which would actually work