RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The European bloc is considering allowing travelers from countries where the pandemic is under control, where there are no variants and who have taken two doses of a vaccine approved by the European Union (EU) or the World Health Organization (WHO).
Travel from Brazil to Europe should be left out of the new reopening rules for tourists that were announced on Monday, May 3rd, by the European Commission.
The proposal forwarded to the European Council – which comprises governments of the bloc’s member countries – applies to entry into the Schengen area, for free transit within the EU – except Ireland – Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Since March, non-essential travel has been banned in the area. The plan is to allow travelers from countries with a “controlled epidemiological situation” to travel, starting from June.
The proposed limit is a 14-day rate of up to 100 new cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 inhabitants. In Brazil, according to the most recent data from the ECDC (European center for disease control), the current contagion rate is 4 times as high: 400 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 14 days.
Today only 7 countries with a rate of up to 25/100,000 are in the “green zone”. The lifting of this threshold is expected to increase this number to about 40 – among them the United Kingdom, Mexico, South Africa, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and Russia. The list is reviewed by the Council every two weeks.
The Commission is also proposing to ease entry to anyone who has been administered two doses of a vaccine authorized by the EU or the World Health Organization at least 14 days before arriving in Europe.
As of this week, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has approved immunizers from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Oxford/AstraZeneca, and Janssen. In addition to including these 4 in its emergency list, the WHO is in its final evaluation phase of the Chinese Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines – the Russian Sputnik V is under analysis, but with no expected date for completion.
The proposal should facilitate the entry of Americans, an important share of tourists who visit Europe in the summer in the northern hemisphere – in the U.S., the current rate of infection is 259 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants in 14 days. It could also open up the continent to vaccinated Brazilians, but the spread of variants should be an obstacle: the Commission has proposed an emergency brake to “limit to a strict minimum all travel from countries affected [by variants of concern] for the time necessary to implement appropriate health measures.”
The proposed standards will be the minimum required for entry into the Schengen area, but member countries may still demand such requirements as negative PCR tests and quarantines, including for people already vaccinated.
In parallel, the European Union expects to launch by July the so-called Digital Green Certificate for European citizens and residents in the bloc, with the aim of facilitating internal transit. The app will contain vaccination data, potential recovery of Covid-19, and negative tests for the disease.
The bloc is also considering security measures to certify the veracity of vaccination certificates and recognize vaccines administered in countries outside the European Union.
Irrespective of the Council’s decision, which will convene on Wednesday, May 5th, travel is still allowed for health professionals, seasonal agricultural workers, carriers, transit passengers and students, among others. In these cases, each country may impose conditions such as testing and quarantine.
The latest information on the rules for travelers coming from outside the bloc can be found on the Re-open EU website.
Source: Folha