Germany on Friday announced its plans to restrict incoming travel from a handful of countries, including Britain and Ireland, in an attempt to curb the spread of infectious variants of the coronavirus, going beyond the measures recommended by the European Union.
“It is about preventing a highly infectious virus from entering,” said Horst Seehofer, Germany’s interior minister, on Thursday, the day before the federal cabinet approved the restrictions.
Under the new travel ban – which also applies to passengers from Portugal, Brazil, South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland) – German residents will be able to return home, but non-German residents of the areas in question entry may be refused, even with a negative coronavirus test.
Although several known infectious variants have been found in Germany, including variant B.1.1.7 at a hospital in Berlin, which then had to be blocked, health officials believe they can still prevent the variants from spreading and causing new infections. .
The changes will take effect over the weekend and will remain in effect until at least February 17. This is followed by a temporary suspension of travel for all passengers from the UK and South Africa, which was suspended a few days after being enacted. All non-essential travel remains discouraged.
The new rules also prohibit transportation companies – airlines, train and bus carriers and ferry services – from bringing almost all non-residents to Germany. Exceptions will be made for health professionals or those who need to travel for urgent humanitarian reasons.
After more than six weeks of strict blocking – during which restaurants, bars, non-essential stores and most schools were closed – Germany is beginning to show a slight improvement in the number of daily cases. On Thursday, health officials reported 14,022 infections over a 24-hour period, almost 4,000 less than the amount recorded a week earlier.