MSH International Travel Blog

Reports of COVID infection rate spikes, growing objections to government lockdowns, and frustration with constantly changing vaccination passport rules are sparking recurring public protests throughout much of the European Union.

According to Schengen News, protestors in Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Croatia are resisting enforced lockdowns of indoor restaurants, bars, ice cream shops, sporting events, museums, cinemas, and even private parties. Though most of the protests have been peaceful, some—particularly in the Netherlands—have led to material damage, violence, and arrests.

Consequently, Canadians planning holiday travel to Europe need to make doubly sure they have the proper documents, are thoroughly covered for COVID-related illnesses and trip cancellation expenses, and fully aware that individual countries in the EU can suddenly impose their own entry rules on travellers from other countries, as well as those within the EU.  

For example, effective November 22, Austria went into full lockdown on all non-essential activities through at least December 13. Until then, inbound travel has been halted. And in a move that may presage significant rule changes in other countries, Austria has cut down the validity period of vaccination certificates (passports) from 12 to nine months. This is Austria’s fourth lockdown since the start of the pandemic—a pattern seen in other EU countries.

Third booster shots may become mandatory

The European Union Commission has urged (though not mandated) all member states to heed the advice of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and impose nine-month limits on the validity of vaccine certificates and require WHO or ECDC–approved booster shots be made available to persons whose vaccination certificates approach the nine-month limit.  

The vaccines provided to Canadians and Americans fit within that requirement.

Here’s the takeaway for Canadians looking forward to European travel for the holiday season or beyond

The European Union, which encompasses 27 nations, is not a monolith. Member countries have ultimate control of their own borders, although they try to maintain some unanimity amongst themselves. They are, however, political entities, so differences of opinion and action are common.

Similarly, the 26 Schengen Area countries (which include non-EU members Iceland, Switzerland, Norway, and Lichtenstein) are also free to suspend common rules temporarily to deal with individual issues on the ground.

What that means for Canadian travellers is that you must know and comply with the entry-exit rules of the individual countries you’ll be visiting or through which you may be transiting, as well as the rules about current vaccine verifications required by those countries. And don’t forget to consult the travel advisories posted by Travel Canada.

Most important, you must know the benefits and the limitations of your travel insurance coverage in case of a medical emergency, whether or not you’re covered for COVID-related illness, whether your benefits meet the medical coverage requirements of the countries you’ll be visiting (many countries now require verification of adequate travel-medical insurance…your provincial coverage won’t do).

And, given the frequency of public unrest about changing government entry/exit rules, make sure you’re protected in case you have to cancel or rearrange your itinerary at the last moment. You want to get as much of your prepaid fees back as you can. Reliable advice from your travel insurance advisor is more important than ever.  

Don’t try to go it alone. This is not the time for heroics.

© Copyright 2021/2022 Milan Korcok.  All rights reserved.

With borders re-opening now that COVID transmissions are generally abating, you need to know the requirements of all individual nations on your planned itineraries. And most important, consult with your travel insurance broker or agent to make sure you know the coverage benefits and exclusions of your insurance policy before heading to the airport. The pandemic has changed they way we travel. Don’t try to do it alone.

Europe Bound?

Canadian travellers heading for Europe will generally find their vaccine passports widely accepted as the European Union recently recommended COVID restrictions be lifted for fully-vaccinated residents of Canada and 18 other 3^rd countries (non EU): including those with proof of restored immunity after having recovered from COVID infection. Fortunately, for Canadians, the EU accepts all vaccines that were used in Canada, including those used in combination with Astra Zeneca as meeting its criterion.

However, though the UA has lifted its embargo on Canadians and others, individual EU nations remain free to lift or retain their border restrictions against other EU or “3^rd countries”(outside the Union) which they consider high risk as surges continue. Just recently it raised temporary warnings against to travel

Germany, Finland, Ireland, Estoia Slovenia, Slovakia as “unsafe for trave” Such warnings are listed almost daily, as the Eu has a threshold for assessing safety levels in its block– the criterion being that mutual re-openings are best achieved between nations that report no more than 75 new COVID cases per 100,000 inhabitants per day on average over a two-week period.

But overall, EU countries have achieved vaccination rates over 75 percent among all adults, with some states moving well beyond that (France 85 percent, Spain 83 percent, and Germany 78 percent). Still, in the interest of safety, it’s important for Canadian travellers and their trained travel advisors to pay attention not only to the broader EU guidance, but to the documentation requirements of individual nations to which they’re heading or transiting

US Bound?

Now that US authorities have announced that proof of mixed-vaccine regimens will be acceptable for

entry, several million Canadians who have been vaccinated with combinations including the Astra Zeneca brand have one less barrier to overcome on their trip South. This is certainly good news for snowbirds.

Overall, the acceptance of a covid passport is not as universal in the US as it is Europe. As we have noted in earlier articles, Americans are split on the issue of mandatory vaccination and more than 20 state governments have legislated that private business, restaurants, sports venues, recreational areas, shopping malls, etc. are prohibited from demanding patrons show proof of vaccination on grounds that such demands intrude on individual health privacy issues. Florida, Arizona, Texas, and some border states are among those maintaining such prohibitions. Other major States, New York and California require their businesses to verify proofs. But given the lack of a national consensus any Canadian proof of vaccination will likely be taken at face value and not be challenged.

© Copyright 2021/2022 Milan Korcok. All rights reserved.

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When Canadians were surveyed in mid-summer about their future out-of-country travel intentions, it appeared that visits to the UK/Europe and Asia/Pacific were well down the list, with the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean being the preferred choices, at least for the time being (according to data from the Conference Board of Canada).

A major reason for that imbalance is the confusion and inconsistency about COVID testing requirements, vaccine passports, and the almost daily rule changes about what documentation or immune status is required to enter any given country. Most confusing is the narrative out of Europe which used to be easy to navigate thanks to the borderless entry requirements of countries in the Schengen Area. Show your passport to enter one member country and travel throughout the others without further border checks. No longer.

With the advent of huge migration waves from the Middle East and North Africa in the decade before the pandemic, many European countries individually suspended the Schengen easements and reinstated border checks demanding passport/visa clearances. Then came COVID, and the border “windows” were being raised and lowered almost on a daily basis as member countries adopted colour-coded map references for countries that were relatively safe (green) to definitely unsafe (red).

Here is a sampling of advisories in Schengen’s daily report for September 6: “Malta recognizes vaccine passports of Egypt and Lebanon” … “Spain bans non-vaccinated travellers from US” … “Estonia adds Norway, Bulgaria, San Marino and Slovenia to her Red List” … “Denmark moves unvaccinated and unrecovered travellers from Croatia, regions of Austria, Italy, Norway, Sweden to its Orange List.” And that’s only one day’s advisories.

To explain: there are five colour-coded categories into which countries fall on the basis of daily testing and infection rate data as monitored by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC): Green (the best), orange (less so), red, and then dark red (the worst). There is also grey for areas where the ECDC doesn’t have substantial enough data for a rating. The UK is grey. And each of these colour codes represents specific metrics denoting the number of new cases reported, percentage of positives, and infection rates.

Planning European travel over the next few months?

Do your homework and stay on top of changes—they occur daily.

Here is a link you can use to keep up to date on European visa and COVID-related entry requirements to most countries in the EU.

In addition, keep up with the Travel Canada site which lists entry/exit rules and requirements for any nation you wish to visit or through which you must transit. And the Reopen EU site will give you a neatly packaged view of all European and neighbouring countries on their colour-coded status.

But regardless where you plan travel, assume there may be COVID-related, travel insurance, or medical coverage requirements for entry as more and more nations are making such coverage mandatory. 

You may also need proof of coverage (your provincial health coverage is not accepted—it’s too limited), and you may have to prove amounts of coverage as well as terms. Carry your policies with you. Wallet-sized cards indicating only your provider or broker are not enough for you to depend on in these dynamically changing times. Some countries, especially in the Caribbean and Asia/Pacific, are now requiring not only proof of your own coverage, but are levying mandatory travel insurance fees at the entry site to cover medical emergency costs (including those related to COVID) for the duration of your stay. Thailand, for example, will levy an insurance fee whether you have your own insurance or not, as will Jamaica which levies a $40 USD medical insurance coverage fee (to cover you up to $50,000 USD) while on the island. Cuba too has been requiring proof of private medical insurance for about 10 years—either that or buy Cuban insurance on arrival from a local company.

The US does not require travel insurance coverage, but if you’re familiar with the fees charged by US hospitals and doctors for even casual treatments you should need little convincing to get the kind of coverage offered in Canada: limits going to CAD $5 million or $10 million per trip.

What used to be relatively easy isn’t anymore. But then, living without the option to travel is no fun either.

© Copyright 2021 Milan Korcok. All rights reserved.

Let’s look on the bright side—at a post-COVID success story—and realize that a new dawn is possible.

Israel, a country of 9.3 million people, has freed itself of most pandemic restrictions after its daily new case rate dropped to less than 20, and more than 80 per cent of its citizens have been fully vaccinated in perhaps the most efficiently run vaccination program of all nations.

At one point, as recently as this past January, Israel’s daily new COVID case numbers were peaking at 10,000 per day, proportionately the same as rates in the United States, which was among the hardest hit of all nations. And overall, this small nation, less than half the size of Nova Scotia in square kilometres, sustained close to 840,000 cases and over 6,400 COVID-related deaths (a rate of 71 deaths per 100,000 population—slightly more than Canada’s current death rate of 68 per 100,00).

But by June 1, Israel’s health ministry could declare a stunning victory against the pandemic, releasing most distancing and closure sanctions, requiring only limited indoor masking at close quarters, and—most dramatic of all—dispensing with its vaunted Green Pass program which it began only three months ago.

The Green Pass allowed fully vaccinated (primarily with Pfizer BioNTech) and fully recovered citizens virtual freedom to any activities that in most other nations remained either closed or tightly restricted—gyms, theatres, concerts, restaurants, shopping centres, even synagogues. In fact, the response to the Green Pass was so enthusiastic, these same venues quickly required it for entry. It became, in effect, a pass to normalcy—and created some antagonism from the shrinking non-vaccinated holdouts.

But you can’t argue with success. The Green Pass had done its job. It was time to be retired—happily.

In announcing cessation of the Green Pass, Israeli authorities have emphasized that vigilance against COVID will remain and that Israel’s borders will stay closed to countries where variants are troublesome. Returning citizens will be given priority, and there may be certain quarantine requirements, but quarantine hotels will not be among them. Such a suggestion was firmly nixed by several sources as impractical, unworkable, and punitive.

In getting to this better place, Israel placed its bets on its high-tech workforce and environment, highly organized medical triage, a digitized medical record-keeping that allowed vaccinations to be channelled to the most vulnerable populations first, a national network of vaccine clinics, clear and unified messaging from the top down, and efficient, proactive negotiating and procurement of vaccines from multiple sources even while they were being developed.

In fact, vaccine procurement was so effective that Israel’s health ministry and several non-governmental organizations are now sending vaccines to COVID-embattled India, along with medical equipment and supplies, respirators, technological logistical support, and medical personnel.

“We can’t just stand by,” an Israeli spokesman on his way to India told media.

© Copyright 2021 Milan Korcok. All rights reserved.

Early in 2019 we alerted you to the European Union’s forthcoming travel authorization scheme requiring Canadians and Americans (as well as citizens of 60 other nations who do not normally require visas for European travel) to file for pre-authorization to visit any of its member countries as of January 2021. 

The scheme, the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS), has been deferred to late 2022 to allow all member countries to better coordinate and come into compliance with each other. Nothing comes easily or without glitches in the EU’s multinational operations. That start date is also tentative as there is likely to be an official launch toward the end of 2022 but it will not be mandatory until 2023. Additionally, a 6-month grace period is planned to allow eligible travellers to become familiarized with the new regulations. So all we can say today is “for now you can relax,” but “stay tuned and be prepared,” because the ease of international travel to which you have become accustomed is a thing of the past. This is especially so as individual countries impose varying border rules to protect themselves from COVID-19, and growing numbers require incoming visitors to have supplemental travel insurance to cover any emergency medical costs during their visits.

The quality of European health care is high. So are its costs. And though European citizens have some reciprocal agreements to cover medical emergencies while visiting neighbouring countries, they extend only to EU citizens—not to Canadians or Americans. As well, until the COVID-19 threat is over, individual countries in Europe have the power to unilaterally impose their own border controls to guard against spread of the pandemic. So before you anticipate travel to Europe, make sure you know the rules for your final destination as well as any countries through which you’ll be transiting. And make sure your travel insurance conforms to those rules.

Let’s review ETIAS

In effect, Europe’s ETIAS is similar to Canada’s eTA (electronic Travel Authorization) or the ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorization) in the US. Its purpose is to tighten the management of EU- country borders, decrease crime and terrorism, and control undocumented migration—all the while reducing procedures and application times for travellers.

The applications, designed to take about 10 minutes, must be done online and will cost €7, payable by debit or credit card. They will ask the applicant’s name, date and place of birth, education and work experience, prior travel, medical status, and other background questions such as records of deportations, rejected visa applications, or criminal records. Applicants under 18 will not be charged fees.

Applications that are completed correctly and don’t ring any alarms on ETIAS’s watch list (which is connected to other international databases and Interpol) will likely be approved in a few minutes. An “Alert” may require a more complete manual application and take from four days to two weeks to pass muster. Successfully completed authorizations will be valid for three years and will allow an unlimited number of entries to Schengen Area countries. Once in the area, travel to other Schengen countries will be “borderless.”

What is the Schengen Area?

In 1985, five member states of the European Union signed an agreement in the town of Schengen, Luxembourg, to abolish internal border checks between their countries. Since then, the Schengen Area has expanded to include most EU countries except Ireland and a few others soon expected to be part of the Area—Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Cyprus. Although Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein are not EU members, they are part of the Schengen zone. The UK, which withdrew from the EU in January 2020, has never been a member of Schengen and so far is exempt from the ETIAS requirement.

The key thing to remember is that Schengen and the EU are two separate entities even though their interests are often intertwined. And the EU is simply appropriating the Schengen structure to craft ETIAS for its own protection.

If you really need more on this moving target you can keep up with Schengen rules on this website.

© Copyright 2020, 2021 Milan Korcok. All rights reserved.