In the last face-to-face balance of the outgoing administration on the situation of the pandemic in the country, the Minister of Health, Henry Paris, announced this Monday that the government will relax the taking of PCR at the Santiago International Airport. The holder of the portfolio indicated that, starting tomorrow, Tuesday, the application of the test will be carried out randomly.
“We have obviously decided to relax and change some measures, make the entry random, that is, approximately half of the arriving passengers will be tested and this will be implemented starting tomorrow,” Paris said.
Likewise, he indicated that the decision was “discussed and agreed with other authorities and we believe that it is the most appropriate for the moment.”
The Secretary of State pointed out that the purpose of taking PCR at the airport is “to prevent the entry of new strains or strains that appear in the world as it happened. At this moment we know that the ones that are circulating predominant is the Ómicron and we do not have new strains, except ‘Ómicron 2′″.
The tourism union valued the measure announced by Paris. The executive vice president of the Federation of Tourism Companies of Chile (Fedetur), Helen KouyoumdjianHe said “welcomes with our request”.
“We value the announcement by Minister Enrique Paris, since it welcomes our request, which, although it does not end with the requirement to request PCR upon arrival in Chile, whichever is random, should speed up the procedures at the Santiago Airport for tourists who arrive in our territory, and thus do not have to wait for hours at the terminal, as is the case today,” he said in a statement.
“This is also in line with our request to gradually eliminate obstacles to reactivate receptive tourism, and for this reason, we will be monitoring whether the measure is effective and reduces waiting times,” he added.
