German tourists arriving in Mallorca. | Enrique Calvo

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The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel has extended Germany’s coronavirus restrictions for an extra month until April 18 and tightened measures for Easter.

From April 1-5, big family gatherings are limited to 5 people from 2 households, most shops, gyms, restaurants and cultural spaces will be closed and public gatherings are prohibited.

Residents have been urged to stay at home during the Easter holiday weekend but the German Government has stopped short of banning international travel and did not impose quarantine for people returning from holiday destinations like Mallorca.

Thousands of German tourists have arrived in the Balearic Islands since Monday, and they will have to provide a negative PCR test when they return to Germany, but despite the fact that Germany’s cumulative interest rate has skyrocketed to 108 per 100,000 in 7 days, the Balearic Government has done absolutely nothing to stop the influx of tourists.

The vaccination programme has become a total embarrassment with the Balearics immunising the least amount of people in the country, leaving the population at risk and making a mockery of the sacrifices Islanders have been forced to make month after month to stop the virus from spreading.

Businesses and residents have been screaming for weeks for the vaccination programme to be speeded up.

"The only viable option is to change strategy before talking about the season,” says Balearic Business Federation of Transport President, Rafael Roig. “Until the population is vaccinated we cannot talk about having a summer tourist season in Mallorca and the other islands. This must be taken into account when making certain decisions, we need to be clear about what to do and stick to that instead of changing things every week. The vaccination plan is crucial.”

Tourist employers, including Hotels, Travel Agencies and car rental companies are in complete agreement with the FEBT.

“Without a vaccination plan, when May arrives we won't have the necessary immunity to be a safe destination,” they said.

Health controls have been stepped up by 15% at Palma Airport to cope with the increase in traffic coming from Germany.

From Friday until Sunday, 69 international flights arrived in Palma with a total of 7,913 passengers. All of them arrived in Mallorca with a negative PCR and only 121 secondary controls had to be performed when faults were detected in the QR codes.

According to the Robert Koch Insititute of Virology, 7,485 new coronavirus cases and 250 deaths were reported in Germany in the last 24 hours.