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Tell us: Has your trip to Germany been affected by the pandemic?
The coronavirus pandemic has dramatically hit the travel and tourism industry in Germany. Were you planning to visit? Have you been forced to cancel? We want to hear your story.
Published: 28 May 2020 15:44 CEST
Updated: 29 May 2020 11:37 CEST
Updated: 29 May 2020 11:37 CEST
Neuschwanstein Castle is a tourist attraction in Bavaria. Photo: DPA
COVID-19
Is the pandemic over in Germany?
As much of Germany lifts - or prepares to lift - the last remaining Covid-19 measures, intensive care units say Covid-19 admissions are no longer straining the system.
Published: 24 January 2023 09:00 CET
Despite a difficult winter of respiratory illnesses, intensive care units in Germany say Covid-19 admissions have almost halved. The number of cases having to be treated in the ICU has gone down to 800 from 1,500 at the beginning of this month.
“Corona is no longer a problem in intensive care units,” Gernot Marx, Vice President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, told the German Editorial Network. “A the moment, we don’t have to think every day about how to still ensure the care of patients, but how to actually run a service that can help.”
Marx said the drop has allowed them to catch up on many postponed surgeries.
The number of sick employees in hospitals is also falling, helping to relieve the pressure on personnel.
The easing pressure on hospitals correlates with the assessment of prominent virologist and head of the Virology department at Berlin’s Charite – Christian Drosten – who said in December that the pandemic was close to ending, with the winter wave being an endemic one.
German federal and state governments are now in the midst of lifting the last of the country’s pandemic-related restrictions. Free Covid-19 antigen tests for most people, with exceptions for medical personnel, recently ended.
READ ALSO: Free Covid-19 tests end in Germany
Six federal states – Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hessen, Thuringia, Lower Saxony, and Schleswig-Holstein – have ended mandatory isolation periods for people who test positive for Covid-19.
Bavaria, Saxony-Anhalt, and Schleswig-Holstein have ended the requirement to wear FFP2 masks on public transport, while Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia, and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania will follow suit on February 2nd.
At that time, the federal government will also drop its requirement for masks to be worn on long-distance trains. Labour Minister Hubertus Heil says that’s when he also intends to exempt workplaces – apart from medical locations – from a mask requirement.
READ ALSO: Germany to drop mask mandate in trains and buses from February 2nd
Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg will also end the requirement for patients to wear a mask in doctor’s offices. That’s a requirement that, so far, will stay in place everywhere else. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has also said that he thinks this requirement should remain.
But some public health insurers and general practitioners are calling for a nationwide end to the obligation for wearing masks in doctor’s offices.
“The pandemic situation is over,” National Association of Statutory Health Physicians (KBV) Chair Andreas Gassen told the RND network. “High-risk patients aren’t treated in all practices. It should generally be left up to medical colleagues to decide whether they want to require masks in their practices.”
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We are hopefully that travel to the European Union will be permitted later this year and the Christmas markets will be open.
I flew into DE the beginning of March with the intention to stay 90 days — my initial strp towards starting a new life there. Within a week, it was obvious that Europe was going into lockdown. I had to make a choice of being stuck there “indefinitely” according the the US embassy and leaving my college daughters in the States home alone OR returning home and giving up on my dream for unknown months. Aer Lingus cancelled two of my flights home (no refunds, no vouchers) and I finally found a flight to NJ in early May.
Now I wait. Will I get back to Germany this year? Should my Freund move on with his life? Are my chances of finding employment there now almost zero? Can I request asylum if Trump wins in November?
The uncertainty is a stress that we all feel worldwide.
(I didn’t worry about my daughters being alone but rather them feeling abandoned in a time of crisis)