UK health secretary considers quarantine again
According to the British press, in addition to Portugal, Greece is also at risk of being added to the list of countries in need of quarantine in the rest of the UK.
British Health Secretary Matt Hancock on Thursday acknowledged the possibility of Portugal being put back on the list of countries whose passengers are required to be quarantined for two weeks upon arrival in the United Kingdom.
“We are prepared to make decisions to put individual countries back on the quarantine list if necessary, and we keep this under constant review. People should only travel if they are prepared to quarantine if the virus increases when they are in that country,” he told Sky News.
The increase in the number of cases of infection in Portugal last week exceeded 20 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the British press, one of the criteria used by London to impose restrictions on international travel.
The Portuguese Health Minister, Marta Temido, also acknowledged on Wednesday that cases of Covid-19 are increasing in Portugal and that there is a greater risk of transmission of the disease.
“The numbers of our epidemic situation are rising. They’ve been rising for a week now and are now around 340 new cases a day. This is a reality,” she said at the press conference updating the situation of the Covid-19 pandemic in Portugal.
Portugal was only included in the list of safe countries and therefore with “travel corridors” with the United Kingdom two weeks ago, on 20 August, despite pressure from the Portuguese government and the tourism sector.
Hancock said the decision would be taken on Friday, but the review of the measures has been announced on Thursday in recent weeks by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.
On 27 August, the British government included Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Jamaica in the list of countries subject to quarantine for 14 days and Cuba moved to the list of exempted countries.
“The decision to add or remove a country is made carefully after an investigation by the Common Biosafety Centre. A leading indicator is 20 cases per 100,000 in seven days, but a wide range of factors are taken into account, including level, rate and speed of change in confirmed cases,” Shapps said at the time.
The list of “travel corridors” currently has fewer than 70 countries and territories, having been excluded since July Croatia, Austria and the island of Trinidad and Tobago, France, the Netherlands, Monaco, Malta, the Turks and Caicos Islands and Aruba, Belgium, Andorra, the Bahamas, Spain and Luxembourg.
Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia, the archipelago of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Brunei and Malaysia were added in the previous weeks.
According to the British press, in addition to Portugal, Greece is also at risk of being added to the list of countries in need of quarantine in the rest of the UK, following the decision taken by Scotland this week and in force today.
In addition to an increase in the number of cases of infection in the country, several tourists from Wales who travelled from the island of Zante have tested positive, so the authorities are asking them to stay in isolation.
The coronavirus pandemic that causes Covid-19 has caused at least 857,824 deaths and infected more than 25.8 million people in 196 countries and territories, according to a balance sheet made by the French agency AFP.
In Portugal, 1,827 people died out of 58,633 confirmed to be infected, according to the most recent health authority bulletin.
