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In an effort to prevent another summer of economic disaster marred by COVID-19 restrictions that destroyed the tourism industry, the European Union announced it will reopen its border to Americans… if they meet certain demands.
Jeroen Roppe, a spokesman for Visit Brussels, told NPR that 2020 was a “catastrophe” due to travel restrictions. He said about 80 percent of Brussels’ visitors come from abroad.
“We are very happy to see American tourists coming back to our city,” he said.
Marc Van Ranst, one of Belgium’s top virologists and a government adviser, told The New York Times that bringing back travel is “not risk-free.”
“Loosening travel restrictions during the summer period will inevitably lead to the spread of the Delta variant, also in countries where it is not established yet,” he said.
The Times reported that countries that depend on tourism like Italy and France all saw declines of more than eight percent of their GDPs in 2020.
Got a Jab
While Europeans are still barred from entering the U.S., American travelers who are not fully vaccinated will have to take a PCR test to show no coronavirus infection if they want to go to Europe.
NPR reported that Americans would do well to “read the fine print.” Each EU government makes its own border decisions.
“This includes what nationalities to admit, whether to require PCR or rapid antigen coronavirus tests upon arrival, and whether quarantine is mandatory,” the report said. “And while the European Commission, the EU executive branch, emphatically urges countries to coordinate such rules with their neighbors to ensure mobility, that plea has often fallen on deaf administrative ears.”
TREND FORECAST: Among Europe’s largest nations, on average, only some 25 percent have received both the COVID jabs. And in America, the full jab rate is 41 percent. We note this to illustrate that the more demands for vaccinations to tourists, the lower the travel rate.
The Trends Journal has reported extensively on the devastation that lockdowns and travel restrictions inflicted on the tourism industry (See: “TRAVEL AND TOURISM: CRASHING,” “IT’S OFFICIAL: EUROPE IN DOUBLE-DIP RECESSION”)
Europe’s economy shrank 0.6 percent in 2021’s first quarter, according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency. The region’s GDP sagged under the burden of rolling economic lockdowns imposed as the COVID virus resurged around the continent.
That contraction followed a 0.7-percent retreat in 2020’s final quarter.
While France, for example, has announced that it will end the mask mandate for outdoors and lift night time curfews, Italy still requires wearing masks outdoors.
We note the Italian outdoor mask wearing requirement – which has been the New ABnormal for most of the world at the height of the COVID War, and the “Stay Home, Stay Safe,” mandates imposed upon the people by politicians – despite the scientific data.
And, as we reported, in our “MORE ‘CATCH COVID’ LIES” article on June 1st, “Substantially less than 1 percent” is the actual risk of outdoor transmission based on the most accepted studies.
Yet, these draconian, idiotic, useless rules are enforced with barely any blowback from the general public. As Gerald Celente noted at the beginning of the COVID WAR, just as the masses marched off to the dictates of Mussolini, saluted Stalin and Heiled Hitler, they obediently and “patriotically” marched off to the COVID War.