Germany Considers Barring Entry to Travelers Coming from Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Germany plans to restrict the entry of travelers coming from Brazil, the German Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer reported this Thursday, January 28th. Restrictions would also extend to the United Kingdom and South Africa because of the emergence of new coronavirus strains.

According to Deutsche Welle, Seehofer justifies the measure based on the new coronavirus strains that emerged in these countries. With the sharp increase in cases in Portugal, the European country, which is part of the European Union along with Germany, could also be listed.

“At the moment, we are considering within the government to refuse travelers from areas with virus mutations,” the Minister said in a videoconference with colleagues from other European Union countries.

In an interview with the newspaper “Bild” on Tuesday, Seehofer conceded to the possibility of restricting all international flights in Germany. A similar measure has been adopted by the Israeli government, which intends to prevent the entry of new strains at a time when vaccination is progressing in the country.

Last week, health authorities in Germany detected a case of Covid-19 linked to the novel coronavirus Brazilian strain for the first time. The infected individual is a resident of the state of Hesse, in the center of the country, who recently returned from a trip to Brazil.

Hesse Secretary of Health Kai Klose said in a press conference on Friday, January 22nd, that the patient was submitted to laboratory tests that confirmed the infection by the new strain of the virus. He did not provide further details about the infected individual, but said that he was asymptomatic.

Germany has been under strict confinement since November, with a second wave of the coronavirus much more severe and longer than the first. The number of recorded cases of the disease exceeds two million, and deaths by Covid-19 have reached the 55,121 mark.

Portugal has suspended flights between the country and Brazil as of January 29th and until February 14th, in a decision made on Wednesday. The Portuguese Ministry of the Interior said that the worsening of the coronavirus pandemic in the world and the detection of new strains warranted the decision.

Only repatriation and humanitarian flights are allowed, and even in these cases, travelers will need to present a negative Covid-19 test result made 72 hours before boarding. Furthermore, travelers will be required to quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in Portugal.

The Portuguese Ministry of the Interior states that on humanitarian flights the boarding of EU and Schengen citizens (a group of 26 European countries, some of which are not European Union members) is authorized, provided they follow the same protocols to enter the country.

In a statement, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that the Portuguese Chancellor Augusto Santos Silva told Minister Ernesto Araújo that the decision was reached “in reaction to the surge in the number of Covid cases in the country and not because of the situation in Brazil.”

Colombia was yet another country to suspend flights with Brazil, also because of the detection of the new coronavirus strain.