Sigh of relief! Sweden, the UK, other European countries do away with Covid curbs
India Today
Several European countries have now lifted anti-Covid-19 restrictions, citing them as unnecessary. Recently, Sweden lifted almost all of its anti-Covid-19 restrictions .
After reeling under strict restrictions for the last two years since the pandemic began, many countries have now given up on anti-Covid-19 restrictions, citing them as unnecessary. In a recent move, Sweden lifted almost all of its anti-Covid-19 restrictions starting February 9.
“Measures such as the participant limit for public gatherings and events and the possibility to demand vaccination certificates upon entry will be removed,” according to the Government Offices of Sweden. The same will apply to other restrictions, such as the requirement of social distancing between groups, and caps on group sizes, it added.
Among other major countries, the Netherlands announced that travellers with booster vaccine shots will no longer have to be quarantined starting February 2; Denmark and Norway lifted all domestic travel restrictions on February 1; Switzerland and Austria have relaxed restrictions for travellers from the UK.
As Covid-19 restrictions ease across Europe, testing too has gone down in many countries. The United Kingdom has announced scrapping travel tests for vaccinated people.
“We promised we would not keep measures in place a day longer than necessary, and it is obvious to me now that border testing for vaccinated travellers has outlived its usefulness. We are therefore scrapping all travel tests for vaccinated people,” Grant Shapps, the secretary of state for transport, told Parliament on January 24. Passengers who do not qualify as fully vaccinated will no longer be required to do a day eight test after arrival or, indeed, to self-isolate, he added.
The UK conducted 20.8 lakh tests on January 6, which halved to 10.5 lakh tests on February 6. In the same duration, daily testing in Denmark dropped from two lakh to 66,710.
Efforts by countries to ease restrictions have been taken mostly after the World Health Organisation, in a statement last month asked countries to lift or ease international traffic bans claiming they did not provide added value and continued to contribute to economic and social stress.
