London: Anyone travelling to the UK from a high-risk COVID-19 country, including South Africa and South America where new variants have been a concern, will be required to quarantine in a government-approved facility for a period of 10 days from February 15, the UK government confirmed on
Friday.
The policy had been announced last month and the government said it has been working "at pace" with the hospitality industry to invite proposals for the measure, to cost travellers around 80 pounds per night.
The rules affect UK residents and Irish nationals travelling from 33 countries on the so-called red list which covers much of South America, southern Africa, the United Arab Emirates and Portugal as feared regions for new Coronavirus mutations.
Non-UK travellers from these locations are currently banned from entry
anyway.
India is not on this list of high-risk countries but a limited travel regime has been in operation within the India-UK corridor since a new highly transmissible variant, called the Kent variant after the south-east England region where it was first discovered, at the end of last
year.