German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would like to see European states enforce a quarantine for people coming from regions where the more aggressive Delta strain is spreading, including the United Kingdom.
During a question and answer session at Parliament on Wednesday, Merkel stressed that in Germany, if a visitor comes from the UK, he or she has to go into quarantine. Unfortunately, that’s not the case in every EU country, “and that’s what I would like to see,” Merkel said and added that other countries on Germany’s ‘virus variant of concern’ list include India, Brazil and South Africa.
While Germany is insisting on obligatory quarantine upon arrival, Spain still has no restrictions in place for British tourists. That is why on Tuesday, Merkel said it was problematic to have a patchwork of travel regulations in Europe.
“I regret that we haven’t managed yet to have completely uniform action among the member states on travel guidelines – that is coming back to haunt us,” she told during the briefing at the Bundestag.
Commenting on the ways of keeping a reasonable control on the corona, Merkel cited the example of Portugal. This month, the government was forced to slow the process of post-lockdown reopening in Lisbon and three other municipalities after a hike in new Covid-19 cases.
