About 40 young people who have returned from holidays in Greece and Croatia are among the new corona cases Italy has been reported in recent weeks. Several holidaymakers who have returned from Albania, Spain, Peru and Malta have also been found to be ill. According to the newspaper La Repubblica, the number of Italians who get the coronavirus on holiday abroad is increasing.

Like several other European countries, Italy has received a higher average for the cases that are reported daily, writes the news agency Ansa. On Friday, the reported daily figure for the number of new cases was 552, the highest figure since May. Until recently, the number of new cases over a 24-hour period was around 200.

Increase in Germany

According to the Ministry of Health, the average age of those infected is now 40 years. At the beginning of the pandemic, it was 61 years old. On Tuesday, the news came that they are reviewing the possibilities of introducing rapid tests for those who return to Italy from countries where the spread is considered to be large.

The German infection control authority Robert Koch Institute has also discovered several cases of infection among those returning home from the holidays - mainly from Kosovo, Serbia, Turkey, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, reports the German edition of The Local.

Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia were some of the countries in south-eastern Europe that in July reported a clear increase in cases and were put on the red lists of, for example, Germany and Austria. This means that travelers returning from these areas need to be quarantined or tested.

Outdoor gatherings and jobs contribute

For the same reason, Italy has banned the entry of residents of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, northern Macedonia and Montenegro. For those who come to Italy from the EU countries Bulgaria and Romania, a two-week quarantine applies. Finland also announced today that quarantine will soon be relevant for those returning from what are considered high-risk countries, such as Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

However, the head of the Robert Koch Institute, Lothar Wieler, says that travel abroad is not the only source of the new cases in Germany, large outdoor gatherings and the spread of the workplace have been recorded.