Travelling to Europe this winter is a bad idea, here’s why

As the winter holidays seem closer than ever, the COVID-19 situation seems to have gotten worse in Europe.

European Union (EU) countries are facing a threat over rise in COVID-19 cases as travellers are now being warned from travelling to the EU this coming holiday season.

According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), several countries in the EU have been reporting high infection rates in this last seven days. In such a scenario, the ECDC is asking people not to travel to the EU countries unless it is out of necessity.

ECDC has reportedly put countries such as Belgium, Austria, Croatia, Bulgaria, Ireland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Latvia, Romania, and Slovenia into a dark red category of countries. The health agency has made this categorisation after these countries were found to have more than 500 infection cases per 100000 inhabitants in the last couple of weeks.

As of now, it is being reported that Austria, Romania, and Bulgaria have registered the highest infection rates. This is in tune with the data that has been provided by the WHO. On November 4, Romania reported 10196 new cases in the previous 24 hours, while Austria reported 4962 cases. Bulgaria on the other hand reported 5863 cases.

In fact most of Europe is currently facing a spike in cases. Countries such as Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and Finland are all in the red category, and have registered more than 200 cases per 100000 inhabitants in the last two weeks. Poland too is in red, and so is Germany, which has been in the red category for quite sometime now.

Germany’s Saxony and Thuringia regions are however in the dark red list.

Thereby, it is safe to say that travelling to Europe this winter holidays should be avoided, unless absolutely necessary.