I can see a logic, sure
From all the news it feels as if trusting the numbers is not the biggest concern. Even for countries that are 'trustworthy', including France itself, registered numbers are just a tip of an iceberg, so quarantining on arrival doesn't make much sense? Those relatively small numbers of imported cases will not move a needle for the French iceberg, so why bother? I guess there is a chance if importing 'mutated' cases, atypical to your own territory, not sure quarantining will prevent it too much. It's a tough one indeed. Still it's a bit difficult to justify France to apply such rules. If China did it now, or South Korea, maybe yes (and I believe they do), but with France or any other highly affected country I'm not so sure.

Surely you remember from Orwell's 'Animal Farm' that "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others"

;)

(betcha diplo passports escape the inconveniences imposed on the little people)

Of course they will.

Another thing, following the actual science happening and being updated each week, it is clear now that the infectious period for COVID is actually 7 days, rather than the previous 14 day estimate. Scientists find zero virus in the body of an infected person 7 days after infection. They even tested stool samples and found nothing. And PCR swab tests can still turn positive because the viral genome can still be hanging around from dead virus for up to a month, but the RNA isn't infectious, you have to be exposed to live virus.

I really hope the decision makers in the French government are following the latest updates from the scientists who are testing real COVID patients and not working on outdated theories.

My own four points.
0. Seen from abroad, President Macron seemed to always been trying not to discriminate between European citizenship (more precisely Schengen+UK+EEA+Switzerland, but allow me to use the EU proxy), as opposed to many other EU countries. There will be a European front, only if each EU (or Schengen+ country) impose a similar quarantine measure.

1. Quarantine of foreign entrants would have made sense as a protective measure two months ago when France was starting to see the virus spread. Today, letting everyone from UK, and other EU countries come in without any control, while French nationals from less risky countries are to be quarantined is counter intuitive. If the objective is to avoid crowding of leisure places, I fail to understand why only those French people working abroad and taking their vacation in France should be prevented.

2. It really sounds as a typical "effet d'annonce". It sounds like we finally do what many other countries have been doing, although with silly timing and only to counter criticisms.

3. Your second point is reasonable and I can assure you that countries which have implemented such a selective quarantine measure have been quite careful. If a list of "risky" countries is published, each pax is required to declare where he traveled in the past 14 days. Sure one can cheat with the risk of stiff penalties. And it is doubtful that France bureaucracy could implement such a system. But let's take your point in the other direction. If any EU citizen arriving from the EU is not quarantined, then it suffices to transit through another EU airport.

I will personally be dearly affected by this quarantine measure (meaning I won't come back to France this summer). But the only point that I made and that is relevant to this forum is that it will penalize AF longhaul. I was on the beach Sunday with numerous French families around. Most had booked an AF ticket for the summer. You can guess the kind of discussions we had.

The other thing I find strange is that France goes from zero (health) controls at the borders to quarantaine. I arrived at CDG on Saturday. They checked passports and the "Exemption form for internatiional travelers entering metropolitan France" (BTW, without any proves that what you put on the form is true), and that was it. No health check. But in one week I would have been quarantained? Sounds odd.

Timing aside, there is a certain logic to it, though. When you are in a situation where there is still a significant degree of infection in the community, there is little sense in having health controls at the borders: if incoming passengers are no more likely to be infectious than local people, it is pointless to have border health controls: all that incoming passengers need to do is to follow the same rules on social distanciaton as everybody else once they are inside.

However, if you reach a situation where the level of infection inside the territory has been brought back to a very low level, so that the level of infection in incoming passengers is potentially markedly higher than in the local population, then at this point does it become sensible to have health controls, including possibly quarantining. That is why, in the current situation, health controls on entering South Korea make sense but health controls on entering France, or the UK or the US make little sense. There could come a point when such controls would make sense, however. Whether that would be the case by this summer is debatable.

The border control imposed by France already doesn't apply to diplomatic passports and to holders of a titre de séjour spécial. This said, most, if not all, international orgs. based in France have asked diplomatic staff to abstain from travelling -- they don't want to become Covid clusters and deal with the consequent political and media lynching. Countries have also limited international travel for their public servants, so all summits, meetings, etc. have moved to Zoom/Webex/etc., and I'm betting most of them will stay that way after Covid.

Without that traffic, expect cheaper Business class tickets once things start to clear up :)

Austria lets people in if they can provide a certificate showing they tested negative for corona. They also provide the option of testing at the airport for about 100 EUR and then wait in quarantine for about 24 hours until the result comes, if there is no corona you can go out. This seems like a good global standard.

It seems like a terrible standard because testing does not yet work very well. Aside from a percentage of failures, if you had COVID, recovered but still have dead virus material in your mouth or nose, you will test positive.

It's 190 EUR.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-he...-idUKKBN22F0IS

Perhaps you expressed yourself incorrectly, but those statements are patently false.

If a patient is infectious for only 7 days after infection, then any patient who has been in hospital for at least 7 days could be moved to wards with lower infection control standards, and health workers would not require full PPE when dealing with patients after 7 days from the date of their positive test result, whichever is earlier.

And that clearly is not happening.

EDIT: I guess on reflection that maybe you meant incubation period (though even that interpretation does not sit with the second of your statements I reproduced above). But that is rather beside the point; everyone who is incubating the disease is, at some point or another, also infectious, regardless of whether they go on to become symptomatic, or remain asymptomatic. I have seen estimates for the cohort of asymptomatic carriers ranging from 20% to 50%; so there will clearly be people "out and about", and infectious, who will not trigger any temperature check, or outwardly exhibit any other symptoms. You stand about as much chance of being infected by a completely "normal" looking passenger sitting near you, as you do by being in the vicinity of a feverish/sweaty/coughing/sick passenger.

This was from a study in Germany (sorry I don't have the link anymore). I suppose it must be rigorously tested before put into practice in hospitals. But at least some scientists are saying it is pretty clear that absolutely zero live virus is being shed from respiratory secretions beyond 7 days of infection. But my main point which should be clear to everyone, scientist or not, is that all the projections made about C19 was based on the behavior of previous viruses. We did not have enough information about how this new virus behaved when all these proclamations were being made. Now they are being corrected week by week as the scientists learn more.

https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/covid-...stions-answers
This is from 24th April so may be out of date, but it gives the infectious period as "7-12 days in moderate cases and up to two weeks on average in severe cases"

Whatever the interest of discussing some specific medical studies, I don't think that we should indulge on FT.