To prevent the spread of the coronavirus during the travel season, the Minister of Health is now creating facts. In Germany, a test should become mandatory after returning from a risk area.
Holidaymakers who come to Germany from corona risk areas will have to be tested for the virus in the future when they return. Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn announced on Monday that testing would be required, which is expected to come into force next week. The tests should be free of charge for everyone, Spahn emphasized on Monday evening in the ZDF “Today Journal” and in the ARD “Tagesthemen”. Testing should “never be a cost issue for the individual” and “not a social issue,” said the CDU politician in the “Today Journal”.
pahn also emphasized that the obligation to test should only apply to returnees from high-risk countries, i.e. from countries with high infection rates. The minister excluded an extension to non-risk countries. “In the end (…) that’s an encroachment on personal freedom,” said Spahn in the “Daily Topics”. Such a must “of course be well justified” and “be proportionate”. In high-risk countries, an obligation to test is covered by the Infection Protection Act.
Spahn had announced the planned order to his counterparts from the federal states in a switching conference. The basis of the test obligation is therefore a regulation of the Infection Protection Act. It refers to an epidemic situation of national importance that the Bundestag had determined for the Corona crisis. With this, the Federal Ministry can oblige people who come to Germany and who were probably exposed to an increased risk of infection to undergo a medical examination.
The Federal Government and the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) set out in a list which countries are considered risk areas with an increased risk of infection. The central criterion is in which states or regions there have been more than 50 newly infected people per 100,000 inhabitants in the past seven days. Popular holiday destinations such as Spain are not on the list in the current version.
Voluntary tests for all travelers at several airports
Voluntary tests for returnees from risk areas at several German airports have been possible since the weekend. If you do not have a negative test result, you have to go to quarantine at home for two weeks as before. Spahn had announced that it would legally review mandatory tests. Even travelers from non-risk countries can voluntarily get tested free of charge within 72 hours – then not at the airport, but in doctor’s offices or health offices, for example.
The background to this is to curb the spread of the virus even during peak travel times, when millions of Germans are on the road again at home and abroad. The aim is to prevent infected holidaymakers from regions with larger outbreaks of corona from spreading in Germany.
Despite the planned mandatory tests, but still remain a risk, said Spahn in the “Daily Topics”. “We must continue to take care of each other.” The Minister of Health warned that it was important to remain vigilant. “The recklessness that arises in everyday life, in everyday vacation anyway, if you are of course a little more exuberant. Illegal parties, the pictures that we see worry me a lot,” says Spahn. Therefore apply: “Keep your distance, pay attention to each other, and have yourself tested if in doubt when you come back from such regions, or generally from vacation.”
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