Germany plans to close border with the Netherlands Abroad

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer is reportedly considering closing the last borders as well. This had previously happened to Austria, Switzerland and France, Luxembourg and Denmark. Poland and the Czech Republic decided, unilaterally, to bring down the barriers.

The reason for excluding the Dutch now may be the new assessment of the authoritative medical Robert-Koch Institute in Berlin. Since Thursday evening, this pendant of the Dutch RIVM has assessed the Netherlands as a risk area for the Covid 19 pandemic. The much larger Germany, due to many more tests and tens of thousands of IC beds, has fewer corona deaths than the Netherlands.

Despite this, the German Interior Ministry assured this newspaper last Friday that the ‘border assessment’ with the Netherlands had ‘not yet changed’. It is known that the theme will be discussed at the cabinet meeting of Angela Merkel with her ministers on Monday.

The main point of discussion is traveling to Germany via other countries such as the Netherlands. Berlin is concerned that non-European persons will enter Germany via air travel and afterwards the opened country road connection. So far, 60,000 people have been returned from mobile checks by the German police.

Want to be informed of the latest corona news from home and abroad in one go? Home workers Pim Sedee and Kamran Ullah catch up on a daily podcast. Listen the corona update here, below or via your own podcast app.

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