Portugal: Negative coronavirus test required to enter Spain from 23 November

Passengers on flights from Portugal, with the exception of those who embarked in the Azores region, will from 23 November be required to submit a negative PCR test for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 upon arrival at an airport in Spain.

The list of areas and countries considered to be at risk for entry by air or sea into Spain was published on Thursday in the country’s state gazette.

Travel agencies, tour operators and air or sea transport companies and any other agent that sells tickets must inform passengers of the new rules at the beginning of the process of selling tickets to Spain.

“All passengers coming from a country or area at risk listed in Annex II, who wish to enter Spain, must take an Active Infection Diagnostic Test for SARS-CoV-2 with a negative result, performed within 72 hours prior to arrival in Spain,” the text reads, adding that the document must be written in Spanish and/or English.

In the case of European countries and the Schengen area, Spain has based the list on the risk map drawn up by the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC), which uses the cumulative number of new cases in the last 14 days, relative to population, the rate of positive results, and the testing rate.  

Travellers will thus have to present a PCR test carried out 72 hours before arrival from the vast majority of European Union member states, including “Portugal (except the autonomous region of the Azores Islands)”. Off the list are Finland, Greece and several regions in Norway.

With regard to non-EU countries, the benchmark is a cumulative incidence of 150 infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the past 14 days, among other measures.

The list includes, for example, Cabo Verde, the US and the UK.

Spain on Wednesday reported 19,096 new coronavirus cases, bringing the cumulative total since the beginning of the pandemic to 1.4 million people, according to figures released by its Ministry of Health.

A further 349 deaths associated with Covid-19 were reported, for a total of more than 40,000 deaths so far.

The cumulative incidence level in Spain on Wednesday stabilised at 514 cases diagnosed (10 fewer than on Tuesday) per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days. The regions with the highest rates were Ceuta (1,071), Melilla (1,013), Aragon (948), Navarra (866), Castilla y León (846), Rioja (799), País Vasco (787) and Catalonia (642).

Worldwide, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused more than 1.26 million deaths since December of last year, including 3,103 in Portugal.

In Europe, the greatest number of deaths are in the UK (50,365 deaths out of more than 1.2 million cases), followed by Italy (42,953 deaths out of more than 1 million cases), France (42,435 deaths out of more than 1.8 million cases) and Spain (40,105 deaths out of more than 1.4 million cases).