Germany has introduced new border restrictions to prevent the spread of more contagious variants of coronavirus in the country.
The German government restricts border crossings from the Czech Republic and the Tyrolean province of Austria, allowing only health workers, truck drivers and residents and citizens of Germany to cross, according to The Associated Press.
While coronavirus cases in Germany have been slowly declining in recent weeks, the more contagious strains from South Africa and Britain have both been discovered within the country’s borders. Many more cases of the British variant have been discovered in Tyrol, requiring Austria to pass a negative test to travel through the rest of the country.
[N]”Not taking the mutations seriously would have significant consequences,” said Markus Soeder, governor of Bavaria, which borders both countries.
According to the AP, infection rates are particularly high in districts along the Czech border. He also said that the Czech parliament’s inability to extend the country’s state of emergency further complicates matters.
“In addition, our Czech partners are currently concerned that it is unclear what will happen with their corona management,” said Soeder. “We are friends, we help; we are happy to take in Czech patients if we wish, but if no measures are taken across the border at all, this of course means a great danger. “
German authorities reportedly dismissed nearly 300 of the 717 people who attempted to cross the Bavarian-Czech border on Sunday morning, saying they did not belong to the approved categories. A smaller percentage, 247 people over 1,000, were expelled from the German-Tyrolean border.
State governors and German Chancellor Angela Merkel reached an agreement last Wednesday to maintain most nationwide lockdown measures through March 7, with the aim of reducing the number of weekly cases to 35 per 100,000 people before shops and museums can reopen.