The UK has released a new ‘red-list’ of high risk countries in a bid to keep mutant strains of coronavirus from spreading further.
Travellers from the destinations on the red list will have to quarantine for 10 days in Government sanctioned hotels, or other suitable accommodation.
Foreign citizens in the red-list countries are already banned from entering the country, while British travellers coming from countries in the red list will be escorted directly from the airport to their rooms, where they will have to pay a bill of around £1,500 for their stay.
In a bid to stop unnecessary travel out of the country, Home Secretary Priti Patel told MPs today, Jan 28, that Britons would be sent home from airports and ports if they could not prove their trip was “essential”.
She told the Commons: “It is clear that there are still too many people coming in and out of our country each day.
“And today I am announcing further action to strengthen the health measures we already have at the border, but to reduce passenger flow so that only a small number of people for whom it is absolutely essential to travel are doing so and therefore reducing the risk to our world-leading vaccine programme.”
The countries on the UK’s new quarantine red list are: Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Eswatini, French, Guiana, Guyana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal (including Madeira and the Azores), Seychelles, South Africa, Suriname, Tanzania, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zambia and Zimbabwe.