The Epidemiological Situation in Europe extinguishes expectations for year-end travel

About a month and a half after the first color-coded maps were published by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in support of the Council Recommendation on a coordinated approach to restricting free movement in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Europe's epidemiological situation has not recovered at all.

In reality, the situation has only worsened amid the recent restrictions and lockdowns, as the most recent maps released by the ECDC indicate.

Once again in an update published on Thursday 26 November, the ECDC maps indicate that travel across Europe is a fact that will not be feasible this year for non-EU citizens, and perhaps even for EU citizens, if the epidemiological situation persists or worsens at the same pace.

According to the ECDC maps, which are based on data reported to the European Surveillance System (TESSy) database by the EU Member States at 23:59 every Tuesday, the situation in any of the Member States has not changed, unlike last week when Ireland went from red to orange.

In reality, the situation has worsened in many places, including the last orange-colored Greek islands last week.

In Finland, which was the only part of the green area until this week, it was also orange. The region of Uusimaa has also gone from orange to red, thus becoming Finland's first red region.

The situation in Norway has not changed again as the Nordic country remains mostly orange, with just a small part of it red. Greenland remains, at the same time completely orange.

The countries that have not told the ECDC this week about the situation in their territories are as follows:

• Slovak Republic

• In

• The Northern Ireland of the UK

• Scotland from the UK

Denmark and Cyprus have the highest research rates in terms of test rates, with 5,000 tests per 100,000 people carried out. With a research scale of 2500-4999 for every 100,000 inhabitants, Norway, Lithuania, Latvia, Portugal, the bulk of Italy, and three regions of Spain follow.

On the other hand, Poland and Bulgaria remain the two EU members with the lowest testing rates, ranging from 300 to 999 people per 100,000 inhabitants.

Week 7 Combined Indicator: 14-Day Notification Rate, Testing Rate & Positivity Test

Week 7: 14-Day Average of Case Notification Per 100,000 Residents

Week 7: Per 100,000 inhabitants research rates

Week 7: Levels of Positivity