The government has announced mandatory hotel quarantining for people traveling to the UK from ‘red list’ countries amid concerns about new coronavirus variants.
The new measures were revealed by Boris Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions at Parliament this afternoon (January 27).
Under the new measures, people arriving to the UK from 22 areas – such as South Africa and South America, will have to self-isolate for 10 days in government-provided hotels.
It’s understood that such travellers will have to pay to isolate in a monitored hotel, and will have coronavirus tests during their stay.
Mr Johnson said Home Secretary Priti Patel will provide more details on hotel quarantining later on today.
During his speech at Prime Minister’s Questions, Boris Johnson announced plans to open school in March, saying: “We hope it will therefore be safe to begin the reopening of schools from Monday, March 8.”
He also said the government will publish its plans to begin easing lockdown in the week commencing February 22.
“So I can tell the house that when parliament returns from recess in the week commencing 22nd February subject to the full agreement of the House, we intend to set out the results of that review and publish our plan for taking the country out of lockdown,” Boris Johnson said.
“That plan will of course depend on the continued success of our vaccination programme, the capacity of the NHS and on deaths falling at the pace we would expect as more people are inoculated.”