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Coronavirus: Every fifth risky returnee gives incorrect data

2020-11-22T13:29:15.355Z


Health Minister Spahn wants to better control infection chains with a reporting obligation for returnees from corona risk areas. However, random checks showed that many travelers try to hide their identity.


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Police officers at Frankfurt Airport

Photo: Ralph Peters / imago images

According to SPIEGEL, the federal police have found inconsistencies in almost 20 percent of all travelers since the introduction of mandatory reporting for returnees from corona risk areas.

According to internal statistics, federal police officers checked 15147 travelers in random samples at the major German airports since the beginning of November.

For 2985 the information was insufficient.

In security circles it was said that the travelers had once entered imaginary names like "Donald Duck".

Often wrong addresses and telephone numbers are noted.

At the beginning of November, according to a corresponding idea by Health Minister Jens Spahn, mandatory reporting was introduced for every passenger who enters from Corona risk areas.

This report, including the registration address and a current telephone number, can either be stored in an electronic database or handwritten on forms.

This is to ensure that the returnees adhere to a mandatory quarantine.

Violations can result in severe fines of up to 25,000 euros.

Two weeks after its introduction, security circles said that much of the idea had obviously not been properly thought through.

In this way, travelers can enter freely imagined data such as name, address or telephone number in the electronic database, since the data is not compared with the registration office.

In addition, the federal police officers, who can always carry out random checks at the passport control at the airports, have no access to the details from the electronic database.

The federal police confirmed the deficiency after a request from SPIEGEL.

"The federal police have no access to the electronic entry data of travelers," said a spokeswoman.

Instead, the officers could only check by comparison with the passport whether the first and last name and the date of birth were entered correctly, as these data can be seen on the confirmation of the report in the database.

However, the address and contact details are essential for the later control of the quarantine.

The strict rules for returning travelers currently apply to almost all countries, specifically the Robert Koch Institute draws up lists based on the number of infections.

The airport operators said that the number of travelers was still very low compared to the times before the corona pandemic.

Nevertheless, there are regular flight connections from the USA, Mexico and other countries that are classified as Corona hotspots.

In some cases, however, states are listed as risk areas that have lower numbers of infections than Germany.

The listing of such areas could overturn the entire risk area rule in the coming days.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, an administrative court in Münster has already ruled that the quarantine obligation in the case of a traveler was not proportionate because he was returning to Germany from a country that has significantly better numbers than Germany but is still designated as a risk area.

The Ministry of Health in Düsseldorf immediately suspended the entire regulation.

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Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2020-11-22

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