[ad_1]
Due to the increasing number of new corona infections, the federal government has declared the regions of 11 European countries to be risk areas. Meanwhile, the general travel advisory for non-EU countries has been lifted.
The federal government has declared all of Belgium, Iceland and individual regions in nine other European countries to be corona risk areas due to the increasing number of infections. In the evening, the Robert Koch Institute updated its list of risks, which now includes areas of Great Britain for the first time with Wales and Northern Ireland.
In France, the Pays de la Loire and Burgundy (Burgundy) regions were added. This means that in Germany’s largest neighboring country, only the Grand Est border region, once particularly affected by the pandemic, is excluded from classification as a risk area. In Belgium, only the capital Brussels was recently included as a risk zone. The statewide expansion now also affects the border regions with North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate.
For the first time, the federal government added areas in the two Baltic states of Lithuania and Estonia to the risk list. Regions in Ireland, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, and Romania were also added.
Individual cancellation of risk area classification
But there’s good news too: for Friborg (Friborg) in Switzerland and the Croatian holiday destinations Zadar and Sibenik-Knin, risk zone status has been lifted. The Foreign Ministry posted a travel warning for Belgium, Romania and Lithuania on the internet that night, the other risk areas should follow that night.
The classification as a risk zone and the subsequent travel advisory are issued if the number of new corona infections exceeds the mark of 50 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in seven days. The travel advisory is not a ban, but it is intended to have a significant deterrent effect, especially for tourists. However, it also has a silver lining for consumers: it allows vacationers to cancel reservations for free.
With the new federal government decisions, 17 of the 27 EU countries are now at least partially corona risk areas, Belgium, Spain, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg are even completely. Iceland does not belong to the European Union but to the Schengen area which is free from border controls. Poland is the only one of Germany’s nine neighboring countries that is not yet on the risk list. But the number of infections is increasing there as well. Among the nine EU countries without a corona risk area are the popular holiday countries Italy, Greece, Malta and Cyprus.
General travel warning for non-EU countries canceled
After more than half a year, the federal government also lifted the general travel warning due to the corona pandemic for more than 160 countries outside the European Union. Each country in the world is now evaluated individually, as are the EU countries and the Schengen area free of border control. A travel advisory is only issued for those countries that have exceeded the limit of 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the last seven days. Currently, this applies in whole or in part to more than 130 countries. Travel to 50 other countries is not recommended, regardless of infection status.
The reason: there are still entry restrictions or an exit ban in the EU. This group of states includes, for example, the popular winter vacation country Thailand, where there are hardly any corona infections, but foreign tourists are also unable to enter. The bottom line is that there won’t be many countries left for which travel is neither warned nor discouraged, especially since new travel advisories are now added every few days in Europe.
