Germany agrees entry of seasonal workers

Two planes carrying Eastern European farm workers arrived Thursday in Berlin and Duesseldorf amid strict precautions to protect the country from the new coronavirus as an ambitious German program to import seasonal workers to help work the fields got underway.

Seasonal workers had been caught up in the country's ban on travel after the outbreak of the coronavirus, leaving a massive deficit in personnel available in  German fields, which employed some 300,000 such workers last year.

Most of those workers came from Eastern European countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Hungary, where wages are much lower than Germany, Europe's largest economy.

Under the new program, workers need to fly into the country in controlled groups to prevent the possible infection of others en route,  and are subject to medical checks upon arrival.

They then have to live and work separately from other farmhands for two weeks and wear protective gear.

The German Agriculture Minister Julia Kloecker said it was a "pragmatic and goal-oriented solution" that would allow up to 40,000 seasonal workers into the country in April, and another 40,000 in May.

Workers need have their information checked by the German federal police, then registered with Eurowings, the airline contracted to bring the workers in.

So far, 9,900 people had registered for April and another 4,300 for May.

The first 530 people are a group of workers from Romania that arrived on Thursday in Duesseldorf and Berlin.

Further flights were already planned to Duesseldorf, Karlsruhe, Leipzig, Nuremberg and Frankfurt.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.