Germany has listed Namibia as one of the high-risk coronavirus destinations that should avoided by tourists, according to the German publication Online Focus.

Eagle FM runs the story below:

Many spend their vacation this year at home or at least in their own country. Others are even more drawn abroad after the restrictions of the past few months. Travel to some countries is now possible again. According to the RKI, dozens are still considered risk areas.

Due to the pandemic, summer vacation 2020 will turn out differently for most of them. Instead of the density of sights and hotel reviews, the infection numbers are the decisive criteria for choosing the holiday destination.

An important point of reference for this is the list of risk areas of the Robert Koch Institute. There, the top German health authority for infectious diseases lists the areas where there is an increased risk of infection with Sars-CoV-2. Whoever travels back to Germany from one of these countries may also have to expect quarantine.

In addition, among the Corona risk areas, there are many less touristy countries, for example in Africa or South America such as Angola, Ivory Coast and Ghana as well as Chile, Colombo and Paraguay.

See the list of high-risk countries below.

Since the assessment of the likelihood of infection can change constantly in the individual countries, the RKI generally calls travellers to find out about the situation on-site before starting their trip – also on the website of the Federal Foreign Office. Germany itself does not call the RKI a risk area for Sars-CoV-2.
The RKI explains that a country is classified as a risk area after a joint analysis and decision by the Federal Ministry of Health, the Federal Foreign Office (AA) and the Federal Ministry of the Interior. It is based on a two-stage evaluation:
  • The offices first determine in which states or regions there have been more than 50 newly infected people per 100,000 inhabitants in the past seven days.
  • In a second step, they probe whether there is an increased risk for other areas – even if they are nominally below the specified limit. In case of doubt, there are indications of this, for example, in the reports by the German diplomatic missions abroad about effective measures that have been taken or have not yet been taken to contain the pandemic. The test capacities available also play a role.