‘No hesitation with quarantine system’
BORIS Johnson has said ministers will “not hesitate” to impose a quarantine system for travellers from other countries to the UK if needed.
The Prime Minister yesterday urged those who go abroad to look at the Foreign Office travel advice carefully.
It comes after a rise in Covid19 cases in France, with face masks being made mandatory in busy parts of Paris as of yesterday.
Mr Johnson said: “I don’t want to advise people about their individual holidays, individual decisions; they should look at the travel advice from the Foreign Office clearly.
“But what I will say, and I hope people would expect us to do this, in the context of a global pandemic, we’ve got to keep looking at the data in all the countries to which British people want to travel.
“Where it is necessary to impose restrictions or to impose a quarantine system, we will not hesitate to do so.
“It’s been a huge effort for the entire population of this country to get the disease down to the levels that we are currently seeing, but we do not want re-infection and that’s why we’ve got to keep a very, very close eye on the data around the world.”
Last month the UK Government announced that travellers to the UK from Spain would have to quarantine for 14 days on their return to the country.
Luxembourg, Andorra, the Bahamas and Belgium were also added to the 14-day quarantine list last week.
Downing Street said changes to the quarantine exemption list could be made “very rapidly”.
Asked if France could be added to the quarantine list, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “We keep the data for all countries and territories under constant review.
“Any decisions to update the exemptions list will be informed by the latest health data and we can and will act rapidly. We have been updating the exemptions list on a weekly basis in order to make sure that it reflects the changes in the international health picture.”
The spokesman said the pandemic meant “there isn’t a riskfree way of travelling overseas”.