Will summer holidays lead to a significant increase in the number of corona cases in Germany? This question will be debated in the middle of the holiday season, as will test and quarantine requirements for people returning from a trip abroad.
Above all, one thing is clear: According to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the spread of the delta variant of the coronavirus, which is considered particularly contagious, is currently responsible for the increase in infections.
Some of the new infections, as shown by the latest evaluations by the institute, can be traced back to vacations. In the latest weekly report, however, the RKI also points out that in most cases Germany is suspected to be the most likely site of infection. In four out of ten cases, no information on the country of infection was available. In ten percent of the cases, it is likely that the virus was brought from a vacation destination. “This shows an increasing role of travel-related cases in the current infection rate,” says the report.
Spain is a high incidence area from Tuesday
By far the most infections come from Spain. Within four weeks, the RKI traces a good 820 infections back to a corresponding trip. The holiday destination popular with Germans is fighting with the fourth corona wave and has just been upgraded by the federal government from a risk country to a high incidence area.
This means: Anyone who returns from vacation on Tuesday and has not been vaccinated or recovered must be quarantined at home for at least five days. This can be ended with a negative test result. If you cannot submit a test, the quarantine period is ten days.
The regulations also apply to children: if you are vaccinated yourself but go on vacation with unvaccinated children, you must quarantine them after returning from a high-incidence area.
According to the travel association DRV, there are currently around 200,000 package travelers from Germany on vacation in Spain, around 60 percent of them in the Balearic Islands, 30 percent in the Canaries and the rest on the mainland. In addition, there are an estimated 200,000 individual holidaymakers from Germany.
The RKI has returned further infections in recent weeks while traveling to a wide variety of countries. After Spain there is Russia in place two, followed by the Netherlands, which will also be a high incidence area from Tuesday. Other travel countries in which people could probably have been infected are Turkey, Croatia, Greece, Portugal, France and Italy.
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The President of the World Medical Association, Ulrich Montgomery, sees the danger that these numbers will continue to increase. “Spain and Italy are popular holiday destinations, especially among younger people, who often have not yet been vaccinated twice. The virus entry to Germany from these countries will clearly increase as a result of those who return to travel ”, Montgomery predicted in the“ Rheinische Post ”.
Germany is already in the fourth wave, as you can see a doubling of the infections every ten days. “We have to ensure that the fourth wave does not turn into a tsunami with consistent quarantine for unvaccinated travelers returning home and compliance with the AHA rules,” he said.
Chancellery chief Helge Braun (CDU) also warns of a significant increase in the number of cases in the next two months – if Delta continues to spread so quickly and “no enormously high vaccination rate or behavior change” is set against it. The number of new infections every day, according to the Chancellery Minister, could then rise to 100,000 and the seven-day incidence to a value of 850.
Stricter rules for those returning to travel
As a consequence, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD) is calling for stricter rules for those returning to travel. “When returning from a risk area, two tests and a quarantine up to the second test should be mandatory,” she told the “Handelsblatt”. A test on return is not conclusive enough.
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) wants to bring forward the meeting of the Prime Ministers planned for the end of August in order to discuss how to deal with foreign travel. Christine Aschenberg-Dugnus, health policy spokeswoman for the FDP parliamentary group, considers tightening the regulations due to the incidence to be wrong. However, she also points out that unvaccinated people should expect tests and quarantine on their return journey.
Italy has stricter regulations
Conversely, holidaymakers also have to be prepared for changes in travel conditions at short notice, even if they travel to countries that are currently not classified as risk areas. Italy, which was hit the earliest and particularly hard by the pandemic, will have stricter rules again from this Monday: a stricter version of the “Green Pass” is required for restaurants, cinemas and air travel, with proof of at least one vaccination dose – for restaurants and everyone else closed rooms – or the full vaccination, which should apply to air travelers and wherever there is a risk of large crowds.
A final list of the regulations is not expected until Monday; There are still arguments about it in the government. While the ministers approve Berlusconi’s “Forza Italia”, the head of the right-wing League, Matteo Salvini, sees the freedom of millions of Italians in danger.
In public transport, the government has so far not seen any possibility of requesting the Green Pass, but has asked all regions to significantly improve the frequency of buses and trams in order to allow greater distances between passengers. Since June, Italy has only accepted QR codes to prove vaccination or recovery, either digitally or in print, when entering the country.
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