Covid-19: NL implements travel restrictions on Morocco, Malta

The Dutch government decided to escalate travel advice and restrictions for Malta and Morocco due to the current coronavirus situation in the countries. From Thursday, August 13, people from Morocco will not be allowed to enter the Netherlands. The travel advice for Malta was escalated to code orange effective immediately.

At the start of July, the government lifted entry bans for people from a number of countries, including Morocco. But as the number of coronavirus infections in the country has been higher than the European average, per 100 thousand residents, for the past 14 days, the Dutch government decided to again ban entry to people from Morocco. The entry ban exemptions for Algeria, Serbia and Montenegro were previously scrapped for the same reason.

When deciding on whether or not to implement an entry ban on people from a certain country, the government also takes that country's response to the pandemic into account, looking at testing and source and contact tracing, and at measures taken to curb the spread of the virus, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. 

For Malta, a code orange travel advice now applies, also due to a high number of coronavirus infections in the country. This means that Netherlands residents are strongly advised to avoid all but the most necessary trips to the region. Tourist trips are strongly discouraged. People returning to the Netherlands from Malta will have to quarantine at home for 14 days.