The Overseas Situation Report Friday 17 December 2021
by Mike Evans
“Stay safe, stay healthy and above all, stay positive!”
– Anonymous
With the Christmas holidays getting ever closer this report is bringing you the latest news on travel around Europe and even further afield.
We start with the latest news from France where the fear of the Omicron variant has forced the Government to impose new restrictions on travellers from the United Kingdom from midnight tomorrow. (18 December 2021). All non-essential travel between the two countries has been banned, so anyone looking to visit friends or take a skiing holiday in France over Christmas are going to be unlucky.
Currently only French or EU citizens will be allowed to enter France from the UK from Saturday. According to a list on the French Government website the only Britons allowed in are those with registered homes in France plus Transport workers and students. These new rules apply to both vaccinated and non-vaccinated people. Anyone able to make the journey from the UK are required to register prior to travelling on a digital platform to record their address in France where they will have to be isolated for 7 days. This isolation requirement may be lifted to 48 hours subject to being able to justify a negative PCR or TAG (antigen) test.
Meanwhile in Italy, the number of hospitalisations dropping in Italy and with the vaccination rates increasing each day, the COVID-19 situation has somewhat improved in the country. However, the country is currently in an emergency state as it emerged from a lockdown that lasted for a couple of months after battling with a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though the country has shown positive figures, it’s unclear whether the emergency state will end anytime soon as the new COVID-19 Omicron variant has already reached Italy.
To keep the Coronavirus situation under control, Italy launched its EU COVID-19 Passport on June 15, which means that the country has long ago started to issue and accept proof of vaccination, proof of recovery, or negative COVID test certificates.
Nonetheless, due to the widespread of the virus and the detection of the new Omicron variant, the country has made several modifications regarding the entry rules as well as the documents that are required to be permitted entry to the country.
European Union nationals travelling to Italy will have to test for COVID-19 before their trip and present negative test results upon arrival in Italy, regardless of their vaccination and recovery status.
The move was taken on Tuesday, December 14, in a meeting of the Italian Council of Ministers, who also agreed that travellers from other EU and Schengen Area countries should be subject to the obligation of quarantine in cases when they haven’t been vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19.
“For those who also come from EU countries but are not vaccinated, it will not be enough to show the negative swab to circulate in Italy, but they will incur the obligation of quarantine. The vaccinated will also be asked to show a negative swab result,” the Ministers agreed.
Through a provision of the decree approved by the Council, the obligation to carry a super Green pass in the white zone has been extended until March 31 as well. The same was set to expire on January 15. Italy permits entry to most European countries, more precisely to Austria, Andorra, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
All persons arriving in Italy from any country mentioned above can enter Italy for non-essential purposes if they have not stayed in South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Namibia, Eswatini and Malawi in the last 14 days before entering Italy.
Travellers from countries that are permitted entry to Italy need to present the COVID-19 Certificate, which proves whether the travellers have been vaccinated, recovered, or have e negative COVID-19 test result.
All people entering Greece must present a PCR test taken 48 hours before entry, authorities in the Hellenic Republic have announced. The measure, which applies to vaccinated and unvaccinated travellers, will enter into force on December 19 and has been introduced in an effort to keep the COVID-19 situation under control, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
“As part of the Covid-19 pandemic control effort, our country will receive visitors from all countries with the demonstration of negative molecular control (PCR) for 48 hours. Excluded from the measure are travellers who have stayed in the countries for less than 48 hours,” the Greek Ministry of Health announced.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), earlier this week, 4,801 positive cases with COVID-19 have been reported in Greece, in addition to 77 deaths and 683 hospitalised patients. In comparison, the report of the National Public Health Organization EODY published on Tuesday showed that there were reported 5,736 cases COVID-19 cases, the second-highest death toll ever of 130, and 700 hospitalised, with 80.97 per cent of them being unvaccinated or partially vaccinated and the remaining patients (130, or 19.03 per cent) being fully vaccinated.
The highest number of infections, 1,486 of those, was registered in Attica, which represents the country’s most populated region, with the northern port city of Thessaloniki reporting 817. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) data, 34,257 positive cases with COVID-19 have been registered in the country during the last seven days, in addition to 660 deaths.
Furthermore, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) shows that five positive cases with the Omicron variant have been confirmed in Greece. Presently, Denmark (310), France (170) and Germany (102) hold the highest records of Omicron cases in the EU.
Across the Atlantic in Canada, people thinking of travelling overseas for the Christmas holidays have been given a bleak reminder by the Government, and that is “don’t travel”. Since early November, Canada has seen a steady rebound in coronavirus cases, according to a Dec. 10 epidemiology report published by the country’s public health agency. Now, with the rise of the Omicron variant — which spurred travel restrictions around the globe connected to several countries in southern Africa — the Canadian government has issued an advisory against all nonessential travel just over a week before Christmas.
“To those who were planning to travel, I say very clearly, now is not the time to travel,” the country’s health minister, Jean-Yves Duclos, said at a news conference on Wednesday afternoon. The advisory will be in effect for four weeks and will then be re-evaluated. The government also plans to increase testing at the border, Mr. Duclos said, and will provide more detail in future announcements.
The December 10 epidemiology report also shows that fewer than 1 percent of Covid-19 infections were contracted during international travel and that fewer than 1 percent were linked to an exposure to someone who had travelled.
Yet Mr. Duclos said avoiding travel was smart because Canadians abroad may not be able to gain access to health care if they get sick during travel.
“The situation abroad is already dire in many places,” Mr. Duclos said. “Once they have left Canada, there is very little we can do to help them.”
Fully vaccinated Canadians traveling by air or land for less than 72 hours will still be able to return home without providing proof of a negative coronavirus test, the country’s transportation minister, Omar Alghabra, said.
Over 76 percent of Canadians are fully vaccinated, according to federal data, with unvaccinated patients accounting for more than three-quarters of hospitalizations and deaths reported to the public health agency as of November. As the holidays near, the country’s most populated province, Ontario, is recommending that personal gatherings be limited to 25 people as cases mount, fuelled in part by the spread of new variants, including Omicron, which is estimated to infect 7.7 times as many people as the Delta variant, provincial health experts reported.
Provinces are racing to offer booster doses and free rapid antigen tests to Canadians through the holiday season, with an inventory of 16 million booster doses currently available and 35 million rapid tests scheduled for distribution by the federal government.
As the Omicron variant moves around the world many places will start to close their borders; the situation can, as we have highlighted here, change rapidly. Anyone thinking of travelling over the Christmas period should always contact their airline or the Embassy of the country they are travelling to in advance to get the latest advice.
Until the next time Stay Safe.
Total Cases Worldwide – 272,845,615
Total Deaths Worldwide – 5,349,796
Total Recovered Worldwide – 245,120,593
Total Active Cases Worldwide – 22,375,226 (8.2% of the total cases)
Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 250,470,389
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