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Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer defended the entry bans decided by the federal government.
"The transport ban is a drastic measure, but it is absolutely necessary to protect our population," said the CSU politician of the "Augsburger Allgemeine" (Saturday).
"It's about the defense against highly infectious, mutated viruses," said Seehofer.
At the same time, he urgently appealed to the population to refrain from any unnecessary travel abroad.
He sees this as a “civic duty”.
"To travel to mutation areas now without a really compelling reason, I must say clearly, would be downright foolish," emphasized Seehofer.
In order to curb the spread of particularly contagious coronavirus mutations, the federal government has drastically restricted entry from Portugal, Ireland, Great Britain, South Africa and Brazil from Saturday.
With Lesotho and Eswatini, two small South African states will join on Sunday.
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The new regulation passed by the cabinet states that airlines, rail, bus and shipping companies are in principle no longer allowed to carry passengers from these countries to Germany until February 17th.
There are exception rules for all Germans and foreigners living in Germany as well as transit passengers.
The movement of goods also remains unaffected.
"For the few exceptional cases, however, the following applies: You have to show a negative test result on entry and then be in quarantine," Seehofer told the newspaper.
FDP parliamentary group deputy Alexander Graf Lambsdorff criticized that blanket entry bans were "not the right way".
Mutation areas would have to be identified and clearly named.
"Then the entry from there must be reduced in such a way that all travelers can still be tested at the airport," said Lambsdorff of the "Rheinische Post" (Saturday).
Meanwhile, the CDU interior expert Patrick Sensburg warned against entering Germany with fake corona tests.
"In countries like Russia, Ukraine, Turkey or Egypt there is now a large market for fake tests," he told the newspapers of the Funke media group (Saturday).
There is therefore a high risk that pathogens and also coronavirus mutations will be introduced.