On Monday at noon, the screening of the first specially selected flight London-Riga Covid-19 took place at the airport “Riga”, the airport representative Ilze Salna informed.
She explained that the airline had already informed passengers during the flight of the need to pass a saliva test after arrival.
Passengers arriving from outside the Schengen area are redirected by airport staff to the “E.Gulby Laboratory” test point in Arrivals Terminal C, where the airport staff assists them with check-in for the test. At the test point, passengers then receive a test sample, prepare a sample of saliva according to the instructions and receive a note in the laboratory’s certificate of delivery of the test sample. This mark shall be checked at the border crossing point by the employees of the State Border Guard.
The first flight assigned to the screening test was London-Riga. Salna informed that the testing went smoothly and that all passengers could leave the airport immediately after passing the test.
Passengers arriving from Schengen countries are transported from the aircraft to the “E.Gulbs laboratory” test site in one of the arrival sectors in the Schengen area, where the airport staff also organizes a queue and helps passengers to register for the test. After passing the test sample, passengers may leave the airport.
As reported, due to the rapid spread of the new variant of Covid-19 – omicron – not only in Africa, but also in European countries, screening of arriving passengers Covid-19 is being intensified, LETA was informed by the Ministry of Health.
It is planned that all passengers on Covid-19 will be tested on a random basis every day for four to six flights, regardless of their vaccination or disease status.
Flights from the countries with the highest number of imported Covid-19 cases in Latvia will be selected for the screening test, namely Germany, Great Britain, Sweden, Egypt, Poland, Italy, Norway, Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary, Spain, Russia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, Malta, Ukraine, Georgia and Switzerland. The selection of flights will be made on a rotating basis.
The testing of the said screening will be carried out on the basis of the provisions of the Cabinet of Ministers Order “On Declaring an Emergency”, which envisages intensified testing of migrants in case of epidemiological need. Transit passengers, children under the age of 12, flight crew and certain other persons exempted from the order will be able to opt out of the test.
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