Guernsey included in Germany’s ‘virus variant region’ classification

Thursday 27 May 2021

Germany has designated all of Great Britain as a ‘virus variant region’, meaning Channel Islanders will have to quarantine for 14 days if they travel there - despite there being no positive cases locally.

The designation, which means a region is "at particularly high risk of infection due to widespread occurrence of SARS-CoV-2 virus variants of concern", took effect this week.

It applies unilaterally to Britain and the Crown Dependencies, disregarding Guernsey and Jersey's covid rates.

A covid variant originally discovered in India (B1.617.1) is currently causing concern in England, but has so far not been detected in the island.

However, the so-called ‘UK variant’, which is more transmissible, has previously been identified locally and the second lockdown has been attributed to it.

German government officials told Reuters that they had decided on the sweeping classification because the country wanted to “play it safe." “In this important phase of the vaccination campaign, the problematic mutations must be avoided as far as possible," they said. 

Pictured: Statistics published by Health & Social Care yesterday. 

Anyone in Guernsey who wants to go to Germany would currently also have to self-isolate for 14 days upon their return, as it is designated as a Category 4 country. 

According to Johns Hopkins University, Germany has administered 44m vaccine doses - with 11m people fully inoculated. This equates to 13.13% of the population having  received both shots.

In the UK, 38.4m first doses have been given out, while 23.7m second doses have been administered - which equates to around 35% of the population.

In the Bailiwick, as of Wednesday 26 May, more than 62,225 doses of vaccine have been administered, with 73% of Guernsey's population over 16 receiving their first jab and 40% receiving both. 

Pictured top: Dusseldorf in Germany.