Germany wipes its list of COVID ‘high-risk areas’ clean

BERLIN (AP) — Germany is removing all countries currently on its list of “high-risk areas” as part of a rethink of its coronavirus travel rules that will take effect on Thursday. The country’s disease control center said that from now on Germany’s list will only include places where high infection rates are linked to variants of COVID-19 that are more virulent than the currently dominant omicron variant, which in many cases leads to relatively mild illness. That change will result in the current list of “high-risk areas,” which contains dozens of countries and territories, being wiped clean. But the Health Ministry said Wednesday Germany will still require people to show proof of vaccination, recent recovery or a negative test to enter the country.