BERLIN (AP) – Germany implemented strict border controls on its borders with the Czech Republic and the Austrian province of Tyrol on Sunday in an effort to stop the spread of more contagious variants of coronavirus.
The new restrictions that took effect at midnight limit access from those areas to German citizens and residents, truck drivers, transport and health workers and a few others, who must register online and show a negative coronavirus test.
The German government warned that some border delays were possible, but police said there were no major traffic jams on Sunday morning.
Infection rates in Germany have been declining steadily in recent weeks, but officials are concerned about the potential impact of variants first discovered in Britain and South Africa. Both variants have been reported in Germany, but seem to represent only a small proportion of cases so far.
Significant numbers of cases of the latter have been discovered in Tyrol, whose residents have had to show a recent negative coronavirus test since Friday to travel to the rest of Austria. The spread of the British variant has resulted in the complete closure of some Czech districts on the border with Germany and Poland.
Bavarian governor Markus Soeder said in Schirnding on the Czech border that “not taking the (virus) mutations seriously would have significant consequences.”
Soeder, whose state encompasses half of the German-Czech border and the entire German-Austrian border, noted that districts on the Czech border have particularly high contamination rates.
In addition, there is currently concern among our Czech partners that it is unclear what will happen to their corona management, said Soeder, pointing to the Czech parliament’s refusal to extend the state of emergency. “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. “
It was not immediately clear which cross-border commuters are allowed to enter Germany. Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said those working in “systemically important sectors” are allowed to cross and that authorities will “be pragmatic where possible.”
Seehofer has abruptly rejected criticism of the European Union’s border controls, and Soeder reiterated that. “Brussels can make an important contribution” to get the vaccination campaign started faster, he said, but the German police will do their work at the border.
On Sunday morning, federal police said 288 of the 717 people checked at the Bavarian-Czech border were sent back for not having the right to cross, along with 247 of the more than 1,000 checked at the Tyrolean border .
Chancellor Angela Merkel and Germany’s 16 governors agreed on Wednesday to extend most lockdown restrictions until March 7, although schools and hairdressers may open earlier.
They set a new target of 35 new cases per 100,000 residents per week before small shops, museums and other businesses reopened. That figure was 57.4 on Sunday, against almost 200 just before Christmas.
The governor of the eastern state of Saxony warned the Germans not to expect too much too soon.
“Unfortunately, there cannot be any Easter holidays in Germany this year,” Michael Kretschmer told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. “Too much mobility as a result of travel and tourism as early as April would be poison. We would destroy everything we have achieved since mid-December. “
Hotels and restaurants in Saxony, which encompasses the rest of Germany’s border with the Czech Republic and was badly affected in the fall and winter, will have to remain closed over Easter and reopening theaters and operas will have to wait until after Easter, he said.
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