Jens Spahn, the German Health Minister admitted that it will soon be possible to ease the assessment of Portugal and the United Kingdom, both classified as at risk zones due to variants of the new coronavirus, to a category of high incidence, since projections indicate that during the month of July the Delta variant of SARS-Cov-2, initially detected in India and currently predominant in the Portuguese and British territories, will also have an incidence between 70 percent to 80 percent in Germany.

Last week, Germany classified Portugal as an area with “concern variants”, namely due to the spread of the Delta variant, characterized as more resistant and more transmissible.

The classification resulted in a travel ban, in effect since Tuesday (before the European Union's covid-19 digital certificate was officially in force), due to Berlin's activation of the European brake mechanism to deal with worrying situations.

At the moment, Germany only allows German citizens or those residing in that country to travel from Portugal, who still have to undergo a 14-day quarantine after arrival even if they have been proven to be vaccinated, immunized or tested.

For the evaluation review process, as explained by the German Health Minister, the fact that the variant does not represent a problem in Germany will be decisive, particularly with regard to contagion and infectiousness, resistance to vaccines and possible evolution of severe disease.

In this regard, the German Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Interior and Health will meet at the end of each week to assess developments in all countries and make the appropriate categorization, added Jens Spahn, who was quoted by Spanish agency EFE.