BERLIN (AP) – Germany announced on Sunday that travelers from the northeastern Moselle region in France will face additional restrictions due to the high number of variant coronavirus cases there.
Germany’s disease control agency, the Robert Koch Institute, said it would add the Moselle to its list of “worrisome variants” that already includes countries such as the Czech Republic, Portugal, the United Kingdom and parts of Austria.
Travelers from those areas must present a recent negative coronavirus test before entering Germany.
The Moselle region in northeastern France includes the city of Metz and borders the German states of Saarland and Rhineland-Palatinate.
Clement Beaune, France’s European Affairs Minister, said France regrets the decision and is negotiating with Germany to try to ease measures for 16,000 Moselle residents working across the border. In particular, he said France does not want them to be faced with the daily PCR virus tests that Germany has applied to travelers along some borders elsewhere.
“We don’t want that,” he said.
Beaune said France is pushing for simpler, faster testing methods and for testing every 2-3 days instead of daily. More talks were expected later Sunday, he said.
The weekly number of new infections in Moselle, at more than 300 per 100,000 people, is well above the average for the eastern region of France and the national average. In Germany, the number of cases per week is currently close to 64 per 100,000 inhabitants.
The Robert Koch Institute registered 7,890 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Germany last day, bringing the total to more than 2.4 million cases. The death toll rose by 157 to 70,045.
German officials have warned that virus variants such as the ones first discovered in Britain – known as B.1.1.7 – could spread more easily and increase infection rates at a time when Germany is slowly relaxing its lockdown measures.
“Two trains are running towards each other,” said Karl Lauterbach, an epidemiologist and legislator at the center-left Social Democrats.
He called on Germany to prioritize giving as many people a first dose of vaccination as possible, as some other countries have done, including with the AstraZeneca shot currently reserved for people under 65. Companies and schools should also conduct weekly tests , or more times if possible. , and those with a negative result should be able to return to the stores.
Bavaria Governor Markus Soeder also pushed for a change in the way the AstraZeneca shot is used. The vaccine has been shunned by many in the hopes of getting the shot from the German company BioNTech and Pfizer, or a similar shot from the American company Moderna.
Soeder said on Sunday that it was “an absurd situation” that many who want to get vaccinated cannot, while those who cannot.
“What’s left just needs to be released,” he said.
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