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Monday, December 21, 2020
Entry from the UK
Passengers spend the night at the airport.
Europe is trying to prevent the highly contagious mutation of the virus from being brought in from Britain. Planes have been banned from landing in Germany since midnight. Anyone who has boarded one of the last planes still cannot enter the country.
Due to the new variant of the corona virus, the entry of passengers from Great Britain flights at several German airports was initially halted on Sunday evening. After midnight, UK passenger planes can no longer land in Germany. But even those who got on the plane beforehand couldn’t just get into Germany.
In Hanover, this affected 63 passengers on a flight from London in the afternoon who were forced to stay overnight at the airport. A spokesman for the federal police said one woman wanted to fly back to London, everyone else needed to undergo a PCR test. A spokeswoman for the Hannover region said they would have to remain at the airport premises until the test results were available. She hopes the results will be available on Monday, but that is not certain. According to information from the Hannover airport, camp beds were set up in Terminal D and passengers are also fed there. “Our goal is to prevent the new type of virus from moving unnoticed to Lower Saxony,” said Andreas Kranz, head of the public health department for the Hannover region. Travelers showed “a lot of understanding for the measures,” he stressed.
If the test result is negative, this means a ten-day quarantine at the destination for the affected passengers; after five days and another negative test result, the quarantine may end prematurely. If an infection is confirmed and it is not clear whether it is the new variant of the virus, those affected go to a special quarantine hotel, as Kranz said.
Rapid tests in Stuttgart
In Stuttgart, air travelers from London who landed at night were taken in small groups to the airport’s corona test center and tested there, a spokesperson said. Then, if the result was negative, they could have collected their luggage and driven home, but they would have to quarantine there. It is unknown how many passengers there were. Stuttgart federal police generally announced that those who landed on Sunday would be offered a corona test and would be informed of known federal state quarantine regulations. “We know the resulting inconvenience for travelers, especially now during the Christmas traffic,” he said. “All partners are working hard to ensure safe entry, but at the same time not to put too much stress on passengers.”
The Berlin correspondent for the English weekly “The Economist”, Tom Nuttall, had also landed on board a plane from Great Britain in Berlin and reported something similar on Twitter. Germans and passengers with other nationalities have separated. The police told them they were being tested: no one with a negative result would not be returned.
The entry ban applies until the end of the year.
According to initial findings by British scientists, the recently discovered corona variant in south-east England is up to 70 percent more contagious than the previously known form. Therefore, the Federal Home Office on Sunday ordered the Federal Police to systematically screen travelers from Great Britain and South Africa with immediate effect. A ministry spokesperson in Berlin announced that this applies to correct registration on the digital registration form. The necessary measures to protect against infections should be closely coordinated with the responsible local health authorities. Travelers would have to be prepared for longer wait times at the borders.
Just a little later, Germany completely banned flights from Britain to Germany starting at midnight on Monday. The Federal Ministry of Transport issued the corresponding order. The exceptions are pure cargo flights, flights with medical personnel or only with crews on board who want to return to Germany. This serves to protect the population in Germany and “limit the entry and rapid spread of new variants of the virus,” he said. The ban will initially apply until December 31. Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn announced an additional ordinance on Monday that will restrict all travel to Great Britain and also to South Africa, which is also affected by the virus variant. Many other European countries have now also banned entry from Britain. In addition to air traffic, France also stopped Eurotunnel trains and ferry traffic.
