European Union Bans Foreign Travelers for 30 Days
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There are more than 76,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 inside Europe. Photo: Shutterstock.com.
The European Union (EU) is closing its borders to all other nations to help slow the spread of COVID-19, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Tuesday night.
The unprecedented 30-day entry ban on nonessential travel for non-EU citizens went into effect immediately.
People within the EU’s 27 member nations can still travel between those countries, as countries within the Schengen border-free zone, including Iceland, Switzerland, Norway and Liechtenstein. U.K. citizens are exempt from the ban due to an interim Brexit deal.
All EU nationals will receive help to return home.
Some European countries are going a step further with their own policies. French President Emmanuel Macron announced a nationwide lockdown for 15 days, while the UK advised against all nonessential travel to any country for the next month.
There are more than 76,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 inside Europe, with more than 3,000 people dead. Europe has been identified by the WHO as now the “epicenter of the epidemic.”
Italy, which has registered the most cases outside China at more than 31,500, announced on Tuesday the number of deaths jumped from 2,150 to 2,503.
The number of confirmed cases in France grew by more than 16% on Tuesday, reaching 7,730, and the death toll rose to 175.
The number of confirmed cases in Spain has soared to more than 13,700.
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