"Travel restrictions make sense": Drosten warns against quick easing

Wednesday January 27, 2021

"Travel restrictions make sense"
Drosten warns of rapid easing

The vaccinations are running and the number of infections in Germany is falling, but travel bookings seem a bit premature at the moment. The Chancellor is thinking about restrictions on tourist border traffic and receives scientific support from Charité virologist Christian Drosten.

In the debate about the throttling of tourist travel in the fight against the corona pandemic, the virologist Christian Drosten described restrictions as "meaningful from a scientific point of view". In view of the decreasing daily number of corona cases in Germany "you have to pay attention to what comes from outside", said the head of virology at the Berlin Charité Berlin in the ARD "Tagesthemen".

The more the spread of the coronavirus is slowed down within Germany, "the more important what is brought in from outside", said Drosten in relation to the concern about the spread of virus mutants. "If we have a lot of infection activity in the country, then that little bit of what comes from outside no longer matters," said Drosten in the ARD. "But if we have already come a long way, then we have to pay attention to what comes from outside."

Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke out on Tuesday for stricter rules for vacation travel. In a meeting of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group, she is said to have brought "certain precautions at the border" into play. Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer spoke out against the "Bild" newspaper for a "reduction in air traffic to Germany to almost zero".

Drosten, who advises the federal government, also advised caution in the debate about possible loosening of the current corona restrictions: "At some point we will have vaccinated so many people that the virus will no longer spread by itself. (…) The only question is: how long does it take? " He is not sure that this will happen any time soon. If the measures were simply ended now, "then we will certainly see the virus multiply again very strongly".

The current hard lockdown in Germany is valid until February 14th. FDP leader Christian Lindner called for a clearly defined perspective for easing the restrictions. His vice, Wolfgang Kubicki, also spoke out against restricting travel. "No flight or travel bans help in the current situation, especially since everyone has to go through tests anyway, but much faster vaccination," said Kubicki to the newspapers of the Funke media group. The vaccinations are "the most reliable and only way out of this pandemic," emphasized the FDP politician. He accused the federal government of replacing "real solutions with symbolic politics".