Now Belgium is added to the 14-day quarantine list

TRAVELLERS from Belgium will have to quarantine for 14 days following a dramatic rise in coronavirus infections there.

Officials are finalising plans to add the country to the list of places from where people will be ordered to isolate on arrival into Britain.

At a meeting this evening, ministers are expected to sign off on the change, which will come into force at either midnight tonight or tomorrow.

Belgium follows Spain – which was put on the quarantine list a fortnight ago, wrecking the holiday plans of millions – and Luxembourg, which was added last week. The decision will cause problems for thousands of people who travel each day on the Eurostar between Brussels and London, as well as those on flights connecting the two countries.

It comes after the number of new cases in Belgium doubled in a week following earlier success in bringing the virus under control in the country.

Some 9,852 people have died of the disease, giving Belgium the highest mortality rate, per capita, in the world. It has had 85 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Britain with 68, Spain 61, Peru 61, and Italy 58.

The number of new confirmed infections there rose to an average of 448.1 per day in the last week of July, which was a 104 per cent increase on the previous seven days. As many as half of the new cases have been in Antwerp, where a night-time curfew has been imposed and restrictions on residents can meet have been brought back in.

Ministers are also monitoring spikes in other countries, including Croatia, Romania, Hong Kong and even parts of British holiday favourites Germany and France amid fears of a second wave. The number of patients in intensive care in France has started to creep upwards over the past few days, reversing a 16week downward trend.

Yesterday there were queues of people outside testing centres in Paris amid a flare-up in infections.

The British Government has been under pressure to introduce airport coronavirus tests for arrivals.

Ministers are looking at whether people coming to the UK from atrisk countries such as the US and Spain could be given tests to reduce the number of days they have to quarantine for.

And the boss of Heathrow airport has proposed a double- testing regime that would see passengers tested at their point of entry to the country, and again five to eight days later.

If given the all clear in both tests, they would no longer be required to stay at home for 14 days and could go back to normal life.

‘Intensive care patients rising’