Italy opens borders before neighbors
Most European nations see move as premature
ROME — Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport sprang back to life Wednesday as Italy opened regional and international borders in the final phase of easing its long coronavirus lockdown, but it was still an open question how other nations would accept Italian visitors.
Families and loved ones separated by the global pandemic could finally reunite, but normalcy was a long way off.
Italy is the first European country to fully open its international borders, dropping the 14day quarantine requirement for visitors.
But most European nations see Italy’s move — which aims to boost its collapsed yet crucial tourism industry — as premature. Many of them are moving to open June 15 — and some even much later than that.
Who gets to go where in Europe this summer is shaping up to be determined by where you live, what passport you carry and how hard hit your region has been in the pandemic.
At Rome’s international airport, Andrea Monti embraced his girlfriend, Katherina Scherf, in an emotional reunion as she arrived from Duesseldorf, Germany.
“We haven’t seen each other since before the pandemic,” Monti said.
Still, the airport remained lightly used even though Italy’s national holiday Tuesday normally kicks off the summer domestic tourism season. It was scheduled to handle several thousand passengers Wednesday, compared to 110,00 passengers on the same day last year.
Italy also resumed high-speed train service between regions for the first time since the lockdown in early March, checking departing passengers’ temperatures as they accessed the tracks.
Europewide, rules on crossborder travel were a patchwork of regulations if not a complete mishmash.
Germany said Wednesday that it plans to lift a travel warning for European countries from June 15, but it may still advise against travel in some cases, for example to Britain if quarantine rules there remain.
Germany issued a warning against all nonessential foreign travel in March. The aim is to change that for Germany’s 26 European Union partners, other countries outside the EU that are part of Europe’s passport-free Schengen travel area, and Britain.
Austria said it is ending border checks with all its neighbors except for Italy, due to lingering concerns about coronavirus infections there, particularly hardhit Lombardy. Italy’s neighbor, France, also is looking at opening its borders June 15 — although French citizens who cross over in the meantime are no longer subject to quarantines upon their return.
The British government was confirming plans Wednesday to impose a 14-day quarantine for people arriving in the country starting next week, despite pleas from the travel industry to drop the idea and criticism from others that the move comes way to late to tamp down the country’s coronavirus outbreak.
Britain has seen nearly 40,000 deaths linked to the virus, the highest death toll in Europe and second-highest in the world after the United States. Europe overall has seen 175,000 deaths in the pandemic.
Britain is also talking to other countries about setting up “air bridges” that would allow certain countries or regions to be exempted from quarantine rules. British tourists make up a large portion of visitors to Spain and Portugal.
Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva told the BBC that diplomats from the U.K. and Portugal “will work together in order to guarantee that British tourists coming to Portugal would not be subjected on their return to England to any kind of quarantine.”
Meanwhile, Sweden’s chief epidemiologist Wednesday defended his country’s coronavirus strategy, which avoided a lockdown but resulted in one of the highest per capita COVID-19 death rates in the world.
Anders Tegnell of the Public Health Agency denied that “the Swedish strategy was wrong and should be changed.”
“We still believe that our strategy is good, but there is always room for improvement. You can always get better at this job,” Tegnell told a news conference in Stockholm.
Sweden has stood out for the way it has handled the pandemic, not shutting down the country or the economy like other nations but relying on citizens’ sense of civic duty. Swedish authorities have advised people to practice social distancing, but schools, bars and restaurants have been kept open the entire time. Only gatherings of more than 50 people have been banned.
Tegnell’s statement came after more contrite comments earlier in the day to Swedish radio in which he said “I think there is potential for improvement in what we have done in Sweden, quite clearly.”
Asked if the country’s high death toll has made him reconsider his unique approach to the pandemic, Tegnell told Swedish radio “yes, absolutely.”
According to the national health agency, Sweden, a nation of 10.2 million people, has seen 4,542 deaths linked to COVID-19, which is far more than its Nordic neighbors and one of the highest per capita death rates in the world. Denmark has had 580 coronavirus deaths, Finland has seen 321 and Norway has had 237, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Tegnell’s pandemic tactics made Sweden a bit of a local pariah in the Nordics and didn’t spare the Swedish economy.