Warsaw (dpa) – Commuters who live in Poland and work in Germany are demanding compensation from Berlin to help cover the cost of the coronavirus tests needed to enter the country.
“The German side should find a solution in which those affected do not have to pay anything for the tests,” Bartosz Marosz, from the Free Borders citizens’ initiative, told dpa.
Because Poland is considered a high-risk country, commuters entering the neighbouring German states of Brandenburg, Saxony and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern must prove they have had a negative coronavirus test within the last 48 hours.
The requirement for such frequent tests is putting an unfair financial burden on commuters, Marosz said.
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern set up test centres at two border crossings in mid-March. The fee is 10 euros (12 US dollars) for commuters and 20 euros for everyone else.
Brandenburg aims to soon set up a similar procedure.
Germany’s Robert Koch institute (RKI) for disease control classifies Poland as a high-risk area due to a surging number of coronavirus cases.
The RKI classifies areas with more than 200 cases per 100,000 people over a seven-day period as high risk. While Poland does not have an official seven-day incidence rate, the country recorded 26,405 new infections over a 24-hour period on Saturday.
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