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With Corona infection numbers falling across Europe, the German government has removed a major hurdle to Germans taking summer vacations abroad, lifting a general quarantine requirement on entry from more than 100 countries with a decree that took effect Thursday. Among them are some of the most popular vacation countries of the Germans such as Spain, Italy, Greece and also Austria.
Anyone entering Germany from these countries can be exempted from quarantine by taking a negative Corona test. For air travelers, this test is obligatory anyway.
For those who have recovered and have been fully vaccinated against Corona, the relaxation goes even further. They only have to go into quarantine if they come from an area with new virus variants. This currently applies to ten countries outside Europe, including India, Brazil and South Africa. Vaccinated and recovered people who come to Germany from the approximately 190 other countries in this world also no longer have to be tested for Corona before or after entering the country.
The regulation is the most far-reaching relaxation of entry requirements since Corona began spreading in Germany at the beginning of last year. The cabinet already approved the new regulations, which are also intended to standardize the regulations of individual German states, on Wednesday.
Four groups of states
- VIRUSVARIANT AREAS: Anyone entering Germany from these ten countries in Asia, South America and Africa must be quarantined for 14 days. There is still no exception here: even vaccinated and recovered persons must isolate themselves.
- HIGH INFECTION AREAS: This category includes 44 countries with more than 200 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in seven days (seven-day incidence), including some popular vacation destinations such as Turkey, France, Croatia, Slovenia, Cyprus, Egypt, Tunisia and the Maldives. Here, a quarantine obligation of ten days still applies, from which one can free oneself after five days with a negative test.
- RISK AREAS: These are countries where the seven-day incidence is above 50. Currently, 102 countries around the world are fully or partially so classified, including 18 of the 26 EU member states except Germany. Anyone coming from one of these countries only needs to be quarantined if he or she has not been vaccinated or recovered and does not want to be tested for Corona.
- “RISK-FREE” COUNTRIES: There are few countries that are not classified in any of the three Corona categories, but their number is increasing. In Europe, Great Britain is already one of them, as well as Malta, Albania or Iceland. In other European countries, it is individual regions such as the Germans’ most popular vacation island: Mallorca. These countries and regions are still subject to mandatory testing for unvaccinated air travelers, but otherwise there are no longer any restrictions.
Travel warning remains
The new entry regulation has not changed the fact that the German Foreign Office continues to warn against tourist travel to risk areas abroad. And even for the “risk-free” areas, it still advises against travel.
source: kleinezeitung.at/picture: pixabay.com
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