Coronavirus Global situation

Germany tightens borders to keep Covid-19 variants at bay

A German police officer stopping a car at a crossing on the Germany-Czech Republic border yesterday. Germany has banned travel from Czech border regions and Austria's Tyrol region after a surge in virus variants. A thousand police officers have been
A German police officer stopping a car at a crossing on the Germany-Czech Republic border yesterday. Germany has banned travel from Czech border regions and Austria's Tyrol region after a surge in virus variants. A thousand police officers have been mobilised to ensure strict border controls. PHOTO: EPA-EFE

KIEFERSFELDEN • Germany yesterday implemented more measures to keep coronavirus variants at bay, banning travel from Czech border regions and Austria's Tyrol region after a troubling surge in contagious mutations.

A thousand police officers have been mobilised to ensure strict border controls and state-owned rail company Deutsche Bahn suspended services to and from the affected areas.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer announced last Thursday that the states of Bavaria and Saxony had asked the government "to class Tyrol and border regions of the Czech Republic as virus mutation areas, and to implement border controls" and that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had agreed to do so from yesterday.

Germany last month banned most travellers from countries classed as places hardest hit by new and more contagious virus variants. These include Britain, South Africa, Brazil and Portugal.

Only a handful of exceptions are allowed to enter Germany from these countries, including returning Germans and essential workers such as doctors. Trade links will also be maintained.

Europe's biggest economy has halved its daily infection rate after more than two months of painful curbs that shuttered most shops, schools and restaurants.

But fears are growing that the positive trend could be compromised by travellers from border regions that are reporting sky-high case rates.

Dr Merkel's government is, in particular, concerned by the South African variant circulating in Tyrol and the British variant in the Czech Republic.

Three Czech cantons, including two on the German border, were placed under lockdown last Thursday due to the prevalence of the British Covid-19 variant.

In some Bavarian border towns, that variant now accounts for half of the new Covid-19 cases.

Slovakia, another country hard hit by Covid-19 variants, was also subject to restrictions from yesterday, though it does not share a land border with Germany.

Controls could also soon be installed at the border with the Moselle region in eastern France, where the spread of variants has been particularly active.

In Austria, anyone leaving the mountainous Tyrol region must show a negative Covid-19 test result.

Bavarian Premier Markus Soeder said he feared that "a second Ischgl" was in the making - a reference to the Austrian ski area that became a coronavirus superspreader hot spot early on in the pandemic.

Tyrol "is not taking the development seriously", he added.

Tyrol has allowed ski areas to remain open, supposedly for locals, but there has still been an influx of foreign skiers into the area.

Shops, museums and schools throughout Austria reopened last Monday after weeks of shutdown, despite more than a thousand new cases daily in the country.

For its part, the German government has decided to prolong partial lockdown measures until March 7. Schools will be allowed to reopen earlier, with many regions planning to do so next Monday.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on February 15, 2021, with the headline Germany tightens borders to keep Covid-19 variants at bay. Subscribe