The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the first set of European countries that Danes can travel to (DK) as of today, June 27. It consists of 25 countries, a large majority of the EU. Excluded are only Romania, Portugal, the UK, Ireland, Malta and Sweden. “Today’s relaxation of the travel advisory shows that both Denmark and most of Europe are in much better condition than we dared hope only a short time ago,” said Jeppe Kofod, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Frequent updates

The main criterion for allowing travel to a country is that the infection rate is under 20 per 100,000 inhabitants in the preceding week. The list will be updated every Thursday. If a country exceeds the limit while Danes are staying there, travelers are urged to return to Denmark and be tested for the coronavirus. Citizens of these countries may also travel to Denmark if they have reservations for at least six days. Certain regions of the countries may have significantly higher infections than the national average, and SSI, the agency responsible for preparedness against infectious diseases, will maintain a separate list of them.

Regional outbreaks 

This comes at a time when Europe has seen an increase in cases for the first time in the weeks since most of the countries began to relax their lockdown measures. About 20,000 new cases and 700 new deaths are being recorded daily. According to Dr. Hans Henri Kluge, European Regional Director of the WHO, “30 countries have seen an increase in new cumulative cases over the past two weeks. In 11 of these countries, accelerated transmission has led to very significant resurgence.” 

The reproduction rate in Germany (DK), for example, has recently risen from 1.06 to 1.79, and a large outbreak at a slaughterhouse in the Gütersloh region necessitated the resumption of strict lockdown measures. The WHO’s European Region, however, is a much larger area than is covered in Denmark’s travel advisory. It comprises 54 countries and extends to the Middle East and central Asia. Kluge expects the resurgence to subside during the summer but warns that the situation could worsen in the fall, when seasonal influenza and pneumonia return.

Yankee, stay home!

The EU is also preparing its list of countries where the pandemic is so widespread that their citizens will not be welcome when it reopens its external borders on July 1. Along with other disaster cases such as Brazil and Russia and several developing nations, the United States has attained the distinction of being considered too risky. The list is not final yet, but it appears that the EU is prepared to forego the substantial tourism and business travel from America in order to uphold its standard. The benchmark is the average number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants, which is also used for the Danish travel advisory. The figure for the EU as a whole now stands at 16. The level in the US is 107.

See Denmark first 

The Danish rejsepas (travel passport) was sold out (DK) on Friday morning. All 50,000 passes that went on sale three days before are gone, as many Danes have chosen to hold their summer vacation in Denmark this year and to use collective traffic. The card gives access to all train, bus, metro and light rail in Denmark for an 8-day period from July 27 to August 9.