Germany relaxes curbs on travellers from India and UK

Germany's health agency on Monday, July 5, said that it would lift a ban on most travellers from India and the UK amid increased cases of the Delta variant of Covid-19.

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) said India, Nepal, Russia, Portugal and the UK would be reclassified from Wednesday as "high-incidence areas".

Germany introduced its "virus variant country" travel category in a bid to stop new coronavirus variants that have not yet spread widely on home soil. However, Health Minister Jens Spahn said last week that the Delta variant was fast becoming dominant in the country.

Given the increasing spread of Delta and research suggesting vaccines are effective against it, "we will look at the situation in the next few days", Spahn said.

Meanwhile, Spahn told reporters that it would be possible in future to mix vaccine doses. This means that, in Spahn's opinion, it would be possible to combine the first shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine with the second shot of mRNA vaccines like those from Pfizer or Moderna.

Spahn said that the addition of an mRNA shot offered more protection against the Delta variant of coronavirus. Delta variant is considered to be more infection.

Germany has enough shots available of all vaccines to be able to do this, as well as to provide booster shots to those who wanted them in the autumn, he added.