Berlin: Spain and the Netherlands will be classified as high incidence areas by the German government starting Tuesday following a surge in the number of coronavirus infections there in recent weeks, said dpa international.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for disease control and prevention made the announcement on Friday based on the infection numbers.
Anyone returning to Germany from countries under that classification have to quarantine for 10 days if they have not been vaccinated or have recovered from Covid-19. However, the quarantine can be shortened by testing negative for the coronavirus after five days.
According to the German travel association DRV, there are an estimated 400,000 German tourists currently on holiday in Spain.
Spain has seen a rapid rise in new cases since the end of June and now has some of the worst figures in all of Europe.
Within one month, around 475,000 new infections were counted, and the seven-day incidence rose from 42 new infections per 100,000 residents in June to 333 now, far above the 200-mark above which Germany can declare a country a high-incidence area.
The Netherlands has similarly seen its numbers skyrocket, with the number of new infections rising by 500 per cent in one week since the start of July. The peak was a seven-day incidence of 415 on Tuesday.
In both countries, young people who become infected at parties or festivals, mostly with the Delta variant, are blamed for the rise.
The Dutch government pulled the emergency brake a fortnight ago, closing nightclubs and banning festivals, and the number of infections has started to fall again, now hitting around 361.
