Kiwis – basking in our virus-bashing fame - are from this week invited to visit Greece. Although we have got our case numbers to zero, other countries are still in the grip of the pandemic and yet, in some cases, their citizens will be able to travel abroad. Britons, for instance, are not yet able to travel to Greece but can visit countries such as Italy, Croatia and Switzerland.
From today, people from 29 countries including New Zealand and Australia can fly into Athens and Thessaloniki in Greece. It has been one of the most successful countries in Europe in combating the coronavirus, with 3112 cases and 183 deaths.
Countries including Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Croatia, Iceland, Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands, will now generally allow in visitors from European Union and nearby non-member countries without quarantines. Some medical documentation or tests are required and people from Spain, Britain, and Sweden, which have had difficult outbreaks, are still banned from some countries.
Spain is waiting until July to lift most restrictions. Britain has only just introduced quarantines for arrivals and has suffered 41,747 deaths – the most in Europe.
The stiff global recession could still be a major drag on hopes for a tourism-led bounce in Europe's warmer weather. In the eurozone, GDP is expected to fall by more than 9 per cent, even if a second wave of infections is avoided.
But after months of lockdowns there will be pent-up pressure for travel. The virus is more patient: worldwide it has infected 7.7 million people and caused 428,100 deaths.
Today's changes will be a 'D-Day' for tourism in Europe, Italy's Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio commented. Italy reopened to European countries in the first week of June.
"We need to be sure that a summer tourist season won't come at the high price of a second wave of infections," Germany Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said last month.
In a worse situation are the United States and Brazil, where coronavirus cases are still not under control. Brazil is now second to the US in confirmed cases - at 828,810, with 41,828 deaths. Also rising is India with 309,000 infections – now the fourth worst-affected country.
Yesterday cases were up in 17 American states after weeks of governors reopening their economies. Country-wide Black Lives Matter protests could also swell infection rates in the next two weeks.
US infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci said rising hospitalisations in some states could get out of control in the absence of a strong contact-tracing programme.
The US got into strife reacting too late, mishandling the pandemic, and reopening before it was prudent. Now its coronavirus graph looks more like a mountain range than a peak.
European countries and prospective tourists will be hoping that reopening borders now will not mean a second wave of cases and lockdowns.
