LeSving wrote:
Nothing is shut down, at least not around here.
Nothing is shut down here, either, and no checks to enter buildings. Bring your motorbike to Scandinavia, @Silvaire!
Unfortunately, you do need a Covid test to enter, due to EU harmonization. But no uploads to web sites!
@Airborne_Again, a friend and family from Munich moved to Sweden permanently this year… guess why? He is half Swedish, half German.
Our friend here from the Dusseldorf area meanwhile makes his regular KLM flights from the US into Amsterdam and drives across the border. I did think of diverting to Innsbruck, especially in view of the 5 day quarantine in Germany now applying to my wife upon entry from the US. Austria classifies the US as a “low risk” while Germany classifies it as a “high risk” country. You can’t make this stuff up.
The US does not BTW stamp passports when leaving the country. The Innsbruck idea is getting more attractive all the time 
skydriller wrote:
I dont think EU/UK citizens can even travel to the US at all… even with quarantine…
They can, they just need a “reasonable reason” to do so. No quarantine, I think, just a test. Flight training is a “reasonable reason”. But yes, all in all, both sides make it complicated – think 9-11 and airport screening. Or TSA for flight training for FAA licenses.
They need a “national interest exception”, and while the list includes flight training (and stufents etc) in most cases this gets decided by the US consulate. Not quite so easy.
@tmo, it certainly isnt just “a reasonable reason”. You need pre-approval by the Embassy/Consulate and the list of reasons is very short…basicly government business.
The only rational justification for it is that CV-19 entered the US from Europe, as did the ‘variants’ that are now of interest to some, but it entered regardless and was always going to do so.
Well yes…which would be logical if it applied to anyone coming from Europe, and IIR Trump was the first western leader to introduce travel restrictions… but unfortunately the mahoosive hole in that at the time (and including now under Biden too) is the fact americans from Europe freely entered bringing C19 with them…
@skydriller, I don’t disagree at all, and of course there’s now talk of the EU retaliating by reinstating a block on tourism from the US. Silly, isn’t it? Nothing to do with health of individuals in reality, everything to do with government power and pride versus popular support and tax income from tourism. We’d be better off with all those responsible in government being suddenly unemployed. This part of it reminds me of World War One.
President Trump did in fact remove the restrictions on EU tourists late in his term, and did so before the EU did the same for US tourists, but his successor quickly and foolishly reinstated them. Trumps IQ and sophistication is substantially higher than that of Biden IMHO, and for stuff like border control and vaccine development where the Feds have power it actually matters. It shows in how he ‘managed’ the Federal CV-19 legal situation: once the ‘horse was out of the barn’ and US CV-19 infection rate was at a comparable level as in Europe it was time to move on from border controls and government power plays to different tactics like the successful US vaccination campaign that was simultaneously about to unfold. Obviously pointless border controls and restrictions on basic freedom like idiotic national vaccine passports did not create the data below. Note that the slope is the most important thing, the EU has 55% higher population than the US.
Moving back to irrational political ‘reality’, arbitrary national power plays and the other sad government nonsense with which we’re left to tackle, the only reason my wife and I risked buying $2800 of tickets at this time is that as an EU citizen + immediate family, it’s unlikely we’d be blocked from entering. That’s the same phenomenon you mention for legal US residents now, but in reverse, just as it was during the many months prior to the lucrative summer tourist season when the EU previously blocked US tourism. There was no time when an EU citizen couldn’t renter the EU, regardless of residence, even when others were blocked.
I’m guessing if the US Federal Government doesn’t open up for EU tourism by October, at the end of the tourist season, the EU Government will feel free to retaliate and no US skiers will be going to the alps this winter. It’s completely brainless but with government, in the end, that’s a given.
If you corrected the graph for the relative population sizes, the USA line would be above the European line for most of the way. Worldometer gives the US population as 333 million and the European population as 748 million which is more than 55% more than 333 million. One assumes it is using the same definition of Europe for the population figures and the COVID death figures.
The population of the EU is 514 million but obviously that is not the point, is it? Again, the point is that the slope changed dramatically in the US because of vaccines. Silly US state restrictions on individual behavior were largely removed simultaneously with US vaccine availability, allowing resumption of normal life without a relative ill effect when compared with Europe where the nonsense seems to be endless in many countries.
It is unbelievable to me how people will fight for government tyranny when it has no benefits. Maybe the future for Europe is exactly what is appears to be now.
EU and Europe are not the same. When you correct for the population sizes, the slopes of the US and European curves are currently in the same ballpark.
skydriller wrote:
Well yes…which would be logical if it applied to anyone coming from Europe, and IIR Trump was the first western leader to introduce travel restrictions… but unfortunately the mahoosive hole in that at the time (and including now under Biden too) is the fact americans from Europe freely entered bringing C19 with them…
The USA has always (at least in modern times) required visas for Europeans, while USA citizens could freely enter European countries. I’ve really never understood why Europeans have put up with this. Usually there is reciprocity in visa requirements. (ESTA is for all practical purposes a visa system in disguise as you still have to apply and get approval.)
