Date Published: 23/07/2020
ARCHIVED - 42 Covid cases detected in Madrid airport passengers during July so far
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
The Madrid Government continues to press for pre-flight PCR testing from high risk countries
The Madrid regional Minister of Health, Enrique Ruiz Escudero, today said that the regional Government of Madrid has detected 43 imported COVID-19 cases in passengers entering Spain through Barajas airport so far in July, 13 of them in the last two days, and has asked the Ministry of Health to request "negative PCR testing" for travellers arriving from "target countries".
The Region of Madrid Health Authority has recorded 77 imported cases in the airport since May, and the Minister claims that the exterior health service monitoring foreign arrivals "has only detected four," indicating that the current controls "are not working," said the counselor at a press conference after a meeting with the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa.
The Madrid Regional Government wants to see disembarking passengers from high risk countries bringing a “negative PCR test taken 48-72 hours in advance” as a requirement to board the flight and that this test be requested from third countries with a high incidence of Covid-19, from which most of the cases diagnosed by Madrid health centers come.
Madrid also requests that the form that these travellers fill out, which must be “mandatory,” can be uploaded to the CoronaMadrid application of the Community of Madrid, so that the data and contact details of the passenger, the flight number, seat number and the address where the passenger will be staying can be logged, in order to monitor the possible appearance of symptoms at a local level.
The Madrid regional government has been pushing for increased testing since before the state of emergency ended, concerned that passengers arriving with positive cases, leaving the airport and entering the public transport service undetected, will exacerbate the number of cases in the City of Madrid.
The airport at Barajas handled more than 60 million passengers last year.
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