After the United Kingdom, Portugal and Colombia, Germany is also closing its doors to travelers arriving from Brazil, in an attempt to contain the entry of more contagious variants of the coronavirus.
The restriction, which takes effect this Saturday (29) and runs until February 17, also affects passengers from other places where there are major traffic variants, such as the UK and Portugal and Ireland and the ‘South Africa.
The new regulations apply to land, air and sea entries. There is an exception only for German residents and German citizens, in addition to essential travel, such as freight transport and health cases.
This week, the European Union had already recommended a mandatory 14-day quarantine for passengers arriving from Brazil, the United Kingdom or South Africa, but member countries may impose additional restrictions.
Among the exceptions deemed essential by the European Union are healthcare professionals, transit passengers, travel for imperative family reasons or for studies and highly skilled workers (if the work is economically necessary and cannot be postponed or carried out abroad).
Concern over novel coronavirus mutants increased after vaccine makers said efficacy appeared to be lower for some of them, such as those identified in South Africa and Brazil.
This Friday (29), Novavax declared that it was developing a new product specific for the African variant, since its tests revealed less effectiveness. The vaccine has not been tested for the variant found in Brazil.