In Great Britain, around 95 percent of new CoV infections are now due to the Delta variant. The UK contagion rate is four times higher than the EU average. However, the British government rejected calls for the last European Championship games to be relocated to another country. The Wembley Stadium, which can hold 90,000 spectators, is to be admitted to the semi-finals and the final with 60,000 visitors each. Strict regulations apply to ticket holders. Only those who have either been vaccinated twice or have a negative coronavirus test will be admitted.
The German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) said with a view to the Delta variant, especially in Great Britain tens of thousands of spectators in the stadium are “irresponsible”. In the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, Seehofer appealed to the European Football Association (UEFA) and the British government to “correct the audience numbers significantly downwards”.
Söder urges caution
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) urged caution. At the Munich venue and in Germany in general, it has “gone well” so far, Söder told the “Bild”. They “made a very conscious decision to wait until it was clear how the incidences were developing here,” he said with a view to admitting fans and emphasizing: “I just don’t want it to catch up with us.”
Söder considers it a mistake that more than 55,000 spectators were allowed into the stadium in Budapest. “I wouldn’t have done it like that in Hungary, wouldn’t have wanted to be responsible for it. To be the starting point for a superspreader event is not worth football in that ratio. Enjoy it, but enjoy it with understanding, ”said Söder.
“Actually not responsible”
The Baden-Württemberg Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) described the fact that the games should be played there at all as “not really responsible”. That would “only be possible with strict adherence to the rules and the intervals,” said the 73-year-old to the editorial network Germany (RND). UEFA and the German Football Association (DFB) must “urgently ensure that the rules are adhered to. The plan to let even more people into the stadiums, like at Wembley, is blatant. “
Some previous pictures gave the impression that the pandemic was over. “That is an absolutely wrong signal,” said Kretschmann. Games in full stadiums and spectators without gaps or masks could turn into a superspreader event. “This recklessness makes me stunned,” said Kretschmann to the RND.
The green health politician Janosch Dahmen warned against negligence. “As a health politician and a doctor, I am equally concerned when, despite the rapid increase in dangerous virus variants, people are held at the tightly packed football stadiums, often without sufficient distance and mask,” said the dpa member of the Bundestag in Berlin. “We destroy everything we do have built up on the low number of cases. “
EU commission vice warns UEFA
A warning recently came from EU Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas. He called on UEFA to reconsider at least the organization of the last European Championship games in London. He had concerns about organizing the semi-finals and the final “in a full stadium at a time when the United Kingdom itself is restricting its citizens’ travel to the European Union”. UEFA must now “carefully analyze” this decision and choose the location of the event “with full knowledge of the facts”.
Many infected after the game in St. Petersburg
However, London is not the only Delta hotspot where the European Championship games continue. In the past few days, cases of CoV infections after attending European Championship games had become known again and again. Despite the significant worsening of the infection situation, St. Petersburg, for example, is also preparing to host the quarter-final of the European Championship on Friday (Switzerland – Spain, 6 p.m., ORF1). The Russian authorities recorded a record 652 CoV deaths on Tuesday, the latest official statistics counted more than 20,000 new infections in one day.
The game will still take place “as planned”, according to the Russian organizers. A UEFA spokesman told the AFP news agency that the infection situation made “no difference” to the teams. More than 26,000 spectators are expected to watch the game.
The Finnish authorities announced at the weekend that almost 300 viewers of the Finland-Belgium game on Monday last week in St. Petersburg had tested positive for CoV. The authorities again called on all those who attended the game to be tested and to isolate themselves for at least 72 hours after returning to Finland. Since the return of around 3,000 Finnish fans had caused traffic jams at the national borders, according to local media, almost 800 returnees were allowed into the country without CoV tests.
