The Germans are not coming… Canaries left on travel blacklist, six regions removed

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) updated its list of risk areas today (Friday) due to the pandemic, and removed six of Spain’s autonomous communities from its travel blacklist, which is a  decision that has important economic repercussions for these regions, because it would facilitate the recovery of the tourism sector over Easter.

The Balearic Islands, Valencia, Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura, La Rioja and Murcia will no longer be on the blacklist for German travellers from this Sunday, but the Canary Islands along with the ten other autonomous communities in Spain, is still on it due to bad epidemiological data.

The six communities that have come off the risk list of the RKI, which is the reference body for the German Government for travel, all currently have lower incidence rates than the Canary Islands.

According to the latest report published by the Spanish Ministry of Health with data from yesterday, March 11th, the Balearic Islands have 51.33 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over 14 days, the Valencian Community, 54.12; Castilla-La Mancha, 78.26; Extremadura, 43.83; La Rioja, 74.81; and Murcia, 70.69.

Currently the 14-day cumulative incidence rate In the Canary Islands is 115.12 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, which is still lower than that of Germany, which stands at 142.40 cases. This means that travellers are still only allowed to the Canary Islands from Germany for essential reasons, and not holidays.