Status: 07/10/2021 12:43 p.m.
Vacation countries like Spain and Portugal are struggling with rising corona numbers. Nevertheless, EU Commissioner Gentiloni believes that summer travel is possible. In Germany, the mood fluctuates between optimism and caution.
Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Great Britain – the number of new infections with the coronavirus is currently increasing again in several European countries. Nonetheless, the EU is trying to address possible concerns about vacation travel.
“We must now guard against too much excitement and avoid overreactions,” warned EU Economic Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni in an interview with the newspapers of the Funke media group. The conditions are different than last year – thanks to the vaccinations. Because more and more EU citizens are vaccinated, higher case numbers would not “automatically lead to a more dangerous situation”. Gentiloni believes in a “strong holiday season”.
That is why he warned the EU member states against imposing “unilateral, unjustified travel restrictions”. “Unilateral action will only increase uncertainty in Europe.”
All of Spain is again considered a risk area
It was only on Friday that Germany completely declared Spain a risk area again – including the popular holiday destinations Mallorca and the Balearic Islands. From Sunday, Cyprus will also be a high incidence area.
The seven-day incidence in Spain is now back to 179. According to Johns Hopkins University, the country’s health authorities reported more than 21,800 new infections in one day on Friday. At the beginning of the week, there were even more than 32,600 new cases within 24 hours.
Spain had reacted to the new classification with bitter criticism. Tourism Minister Reyes Maroto stressed that Spain was still a “safe travel destination” and that it was wrong for some countries to base their risk assessments only on the incidence figures.
France calls for vaccinations before traveling
But the federal government is not the only one to be concerned about the increasing number of infections in Spain. The French State Secretary for European Affairs, Clément Beaune, also warned against traveling to Spain or Portugal on summer vacation. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian did not go that far, but from his point of view only French should travel to these two countries that have already been vaccinated against the corona virus.
Portugal has also been struggling with increasing numbers of infections for weeks, mainly due to the spread of the delta variant. For this reason, the country already took massive precautionary measures in mid-June and sealed off the capital Lisbon over the weekends. Germany therefore classified Portugal as a virus variant area at the end of June; it is now a high incidence area.
Tens of thousands of cases in the UK every day
In addition to Spain and Portugal, the UK in particular has seen a sharp increase in infections since mid-June. According to the figures from Johns Hopkins University, the value of new daily infections exceeded the 10,000 mark in the United Kingdom for the first time around three weeks ago. Most recently, the British government reported more than 35,700 new cases within 24 hours on Friday.
Warning of premature termination of the measures
Developments that are also fueling concerns among some German politicians about giving the all-clear too early in the fight against the corona crisis. “The pandemic situation seems relaxed at the moment. That is a fallacy,” the Lower Saxony health minister Daniela Behrens warned in the “Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung” on Friday. She is expecting a fourth wave and points out that the number of infections initially decreased slightly last summer.
And especially with a view to the trips in the summer months, one has to wait “how the infection process develops when everyone is back from vacation, when the delta variant is the predominant variant in all of Europe”.
In an interview with the “Augsburger Allgemeine”, Federal Minister of Justice Christine Lambrecht also spoke out against ending all Corona measures in Germany too early. “The pandemic is not over yet,” emphasized the SPD politician. With the help of vaccinations, the aim of herd immunity must continue to be pursued. But Lambrecht also referred to risk groups such as people with previous illnesses who could not be vaccinated. The same applies to children under the age of twelve, as no vaccine has yet been approved for them.
Even Bavaria’s Minister of Health, Klaus Holetschek, cannot imagine everyday life without a mask and a minimum distance. These measures would “also apply at the beginning of the school year,” he told the Evangelical Press Service. It is understandable that especially in summer people wanted to “go to holiday destinations that have been selected for a long time”. But the CSU politician added: “Everyone just has to think carefully about the consequences that can have – including quarantine on their return.”
The hope that the pandemic will end soon
Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas expressed significantly more optimism a few days ago. As soon as all people in Germany could be offered a vaccination, in his view there is no longer any legal or political justification for the continued existence of the corona restrictions. And that could be the case as early as August. However, Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn immediately objected: Not everyone could be vaccinated by August. Concrete times, when which conditions could be lifted – difficult from the point of view of the CDU politician.
Hamburg’s Mayor Peter Tschentscher is a little more patient, but he also believes in a foreseeable line under the crisis: “I think we will leave the pandemic behind us this year.” In contrast to Lower Saxony’s Minister of Health Behrens, he refers to what has improved since last summer. There are vaccines that also offer protection against the virus variants. There are comprehensive test strategies to quickly identify and interrupt chains of infection.