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Wednesday, October 07, 2020
Due to the increasing number of corona cases, the federal government is classifying other countries as risk areas. In addition to Tunisia, it is now also affecting Romania and Georgia. A popular holiday island with German tourists, on the other hand, has been removed from the warning list.
The federal government has declared all of Romania, Tunisia, Georgia and Jordan, as well as the individual regions of seven EU countries, to be corona risk areas. The Robert Koch Institute updated its hazard list accordingly overnight. The five Dutch provinces that border Germany can now be found there. Limburg was the last to join, Zeeland on the North Sea coast is the only one of the twelve Dutch provinces that is not yet a risk zone.
For the first time, parts of Slovakia were declared risk zones. In Slovenia, the capital Ljubljana was added, as well as regions of Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania and Bulgaria. The Federal Foreign Office also issued a travel advisory for all of these areas. But two regions have also been removed from the risk list: the island of Corsica, which is also popular with German tourists, and a region in Croatia.
Classification as a risk zone occurs when a country or region exceeds the limit of 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the last seven days. Currently, this applies fully to 127 countries and partially to 15. Travel to more than 40 countries is not recommended, regardless of infection status. The reason: there are still entry restrictions, quarantine rules or a ban on leaving the EU.
Tunisia is now a Corona hotspot
The risk zone designation and associated travel advisories do not automatically mean a travel ban, but should have the greatest possible deterrent effect on tourists. The good news for vacationers: they can cancel a trip that has already been booked if their destination is declared a risk zone. The bad: Returnees from risk areas currently have to be quarantined for 14 days, but they can be released prematurely with a negative test.
The bottom line is that there are only a few countries left for which travel is neither advised nor discouraged. These include the popular vacation countries Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Malta. As of Wednesday, Georgia was the only country outside of Europe that was neither warned nor advised against travel. Now there are none. Along with Egypt and Morocco, Tunisia is one of the North African tourist destinations that are attractive to German tourists outside of the summer months. The Foreign Ministry had already advised against traveling there, now the country has also been included in the risk list.
In Tunisia’s capital Tunis, there will be another nighttime curfew due to the sharp rise in new corona infections. Starting Thursday, residents across the district will have to stay home on weekdays between 8 pm and 5 am (local time), Tunisian Governor Schadhli Bualak said. On weekends, the curfew should take effect at 6 p.m. Tunisia had recently become one of the country’s crown hot spots.
