Croatia ‘to join France’ on our holiday hotspot quarantine list
Blow to 20,000 British tourists
TENS of thousands of Britons face a rush to flee Croatia amid growing certainty the country will get added to the quarantine list tonight.
Rocketing infection rates mean the Balkan state’s cumulative number of cases over seven days – a key metric closely-monitored by Downing Street – now stands at 27.4 per 100,000 people.
The threshold for quarantine is said to be just 20. By contrast, France is on 25.5 and was added to the list last Saturday.
An estimated 20,000 British holidaymakers are believed to be in Croatia and many will have to cut their holidays short to return.
The Department for Transport is likely to make an announcement tonight, or possibly tomorrow, with a deadline of 4am on Saturday or Sunday before the new measures kick in, triggering a rush for tickets on the
‘Trigger a rush for tickets’
last remaining flights home. In a further blow, industry experts have rejected hopes Portugal could be removed from the ‘red’ list of countries this weekend and say it is unlikely to get a travel corridor before August 29. A slight rise in cases could even threaten those plans as ministers will only drop quarantine if a country can prove infection numbers are falling consistently.
Insiders have also rubbished concerns Greece will be added to the quarantine list this week, but say it is too early to tell if it will be at risk next week.
The country has tightened restrictions in some areas due to concerns over a slight rise in cases. Travel bosses yesterday piled pressure on ministers to ditch the 14-day quarantine rule in favour of an airport testing regime.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said ministers are working with the aviation industry to reduce the 14-day quarantine period. He told Sky News: ‘We’re working with Heathrow and with other airports on this project.
‘The challenge is because the virus can incubate inside your body without coming forward and without therefore a test being positive, even if you’ve got it. The challenge is how to do that testing in a way that we can have confidence enough in to release the quarantine.
‘But absolutely it’s a project we’re working with Heathrow on because clearly I understand the impact of quarantine in so many people’s lives – it’s not something anybody would want to do so I hope this project can bear fruit.’ It came after the Mail revealed that Heathrow has built a purposebuilt testing centre capable of swabbing thousands of arrivals a day. Under the proposed scheme, arriving passengers will book swab tests and have results emailed to them in seven hours.
Travellers can do a second test at home a few days later and then leave quarantine early if they pass both checks.
It comes as Norway said that from Saturday it will impose a ten-day quarantine on all people arriving from Britain.
Meanwhile, South Korea has reported 297 new Covid cases, its biggest daily rise since
March. It was the sixth consecutive day the country reported daily increases in triple digits, with most cases coming in the capital Seoul.
South Korea was one of the first countries in the world to initially emerge from lockdown thanks to a rigorous test and trace programme.
OLDHAM will find out today if it is to face a local lockdown as politicians warned the town would be crippled by tighter restrictions. Local MPs, the council leader and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham urged ministers not to close bars, restaurants and gyms, saying it would be ‘catastrophic’ for the already struggling economy.