Albertina Nakale
The German government has removed Namibia off its high-risk list, effective yesterday. Namibia was until 30 January this year regarded as a Covid-19 high-risk country by the Federal Republic of Germany.
Other regional countries – South Africa, Lesotho and eSwatini – have also been removed from the high-risk list. As of 4 January, all countries that appeared on Germany’s ‘virus variant areas list’ were moved to its high-risk list, according to an announcement by the country’s Robert Koch Institute.
At the time, Namibia, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and the UK have been listed as high-risk areas.
They had all been placed on the red list of ‘virus variant countries’ on 28 November – and only German citizens and residents, as well as specific categories of travellers, could enter Germany from virus variant areas.
Reacting to the announcement yesterday, the head of the Hospitality Association of Namibia (HAN) Gitta Paetzold hailed RKI’s latest two-weekly decision announced on Friday to come into effect on Sunday [yesterday], and the re-categorisation for Southern Africa as no longer high risk.
“It is very good news, albeit long overdue, as the Covid cases in our part of the world have been much lower than in the EU for months now. This means after the worst state at the end of November, when this region was deemed and categorised high risk with variant status, due to the discovery of Omicron, now being no longer high risk means all travel warnings and regulations have been lifted. No quarantine due on arrival (return) and for fully vaccinated travellers,” she noted.
Further, she explained that ease of travel from Germany and the EU is almost back to pre-Covid levels, as Europe does no longer even require vaccinated travellers to do PRC tests before travelling to the EU.
“Namibia is, thus, officially categorised a safe destination, which enables the travel sector to forge ahead with marketing and sales. We hope that soon, global travel will agree on one international travel protocol for all, as sporadic changes to travel restrictions are detrimental to tourism revival,” she appealed.
In this regard, Paetzold said it is encouraging to see that representatives of the German government are reaching out to tourism stakeholders from Namibia to discuss the effects of travel restrictions.
According to her, the key to maintaining Namibia’s status as a safe and desirable travel destination is clear communication and strong national high-level messaging of Namibian efforts and achievements in managing the pandemic.
She advised such messaging should be targeted to the local and international market to ensure they can make informed decisions.
In another positive development, the ministry of international relations welcomed the lifting of the travel restrictions on travellers from Namibia by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after an engagement on 21 January 2022 between international relations minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah and Sheik Shakhboot Nahyan Al Nahyan, UAE foreign affairs minister.
The United Arab Emirates announced the travel ban would be lifted on 29 January 2022.
- anakale@nepc.com.na