Coronavirus: EU to ease restrictions on US, Hong Kong, Taiwan travellers

Name: Meet Grace, the health care robot created for the coronavirus crisis
Uploaded: 2021-06-16T15:04:53.000Z
Duration: 3 min 3 s
Description: Meet Grace, the health care robot created for the coronavirus crisis

The EU has added the US and eight other territories to its white list, ahead of the busy summer holiday season

The other regions added were Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia, Lebanon, Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong, officials said

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People at the French Riviera city of Nice, southern France. Photo: AFP

Agence France-Presse

Published: 11:04pm, 16 Jun 2021Updated: 12:06am, 17 Jun 2021

The European Union (EU) on Wednesday agreed to lift coronavirus restrictions for travellers from the US and several other places, as Western countries move towards a return to pre-pandemic life.

The United States was among eight countries and territories added to a EU white list, exempting them from the Covid-19 travel ban ahead of the busy summer holiday season critical to the economies of many member nations.

EU states can still choose to require travellers from these areas to undergo Covid-19 testing or to observe periods in quarantine, but once the new list is approved, the recommendation is that they should be exempted from a blanket travel ban that the bloc imposed in March 2020.

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Meet Grace, the health care robot created for the coronavirus crisis

The other countries and regions added to the white list on Wednesday were Albania, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Macau, North Macedonia, Serbia and Taiwan, officials and diplomats said.

France meanwhile said that masks would no longer be required outdoors from Thursday and that an unpopular Covid-19 curfew would be scrapped on June 20, 10 days earlier than initially planned, thanks to falling infections.

“The health situation of our country is improving faster than we expected,” said Prime Minister Jean Castex.

Europe’s move came a day after Covid-19 restrictions were dropped from sea to sea in the US, with New York City and the state of California lifting nearly all curbs.