Germany, France ban travellers from Britain over Omicron fears

Countries are upping their restrictions on UK travel after Britain registered 90,418 daily COVID cases on Saturday.

Only German citizens and residents will be allowed in from the UK so long as they present a negative test and quarantine for two weeks.

France adopted similar restrictions for UK travellers. From Saturday 18 December, UK citizens will need to present a valid reason to enter France. Tourism or business trips are outright banned. 

Meanwhile, the Netherlands imposed a strict lockdown until 14 January, while Italy imposed mandatory testing for all EU arrivals regardless of vaccination status.

So far, Maltese authorities have not issued any travel restrictions against the United Kingdom. 

Since the United Kingdom is on Malta’s red list, travellers must present a completed Passenger Locator Form and valid vaccination certificate for a vaccine approved by the European Medicines Agency.

Government had temporarily banned travel to and from countries with known cases of the Omicron variant to Malta last November. These included South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Botswana, Eswatini and Zimbabwe.

Malta has no known Omicron cases. The variant was first detected in South Africa on 22 November, and has since spread to over 80 countries and all continents, except Antarctica. 

According to the WHO, Omicron cases are doubling every one to three days in places with community transmission.