The United Kingdom introduces institutionalized hotel quarantine for travelers arriving from red countries

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly defended the government's plan to quarantine hotel travel, which begins on February 15th. All those who will travel from the red countries will be obliged to stay 10 nights in a hotel designated by the authorities.

Quarantine hotels are expected to be booked near Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports. The government is working at a fast pace to secure the necessary rooms, holding talks with over 60 companies in the hotel and tourism industry.

right with the BBC, in the first hours after the confirmation of the new quarantine rules related to COVID-19, the government of London reserved thousands of hotel rooms. Authorities expect an average of 1.000 people to return to the UK every day from places where new variants of the coronavirus are spread.

The rules affect UK residents and Irish citizens traveling from 33 countries on "red list”. Many of them are from South America, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and Portugal.

The measure of institutionalized quarantine at the hotel is being introduced in an increased effort to control the spread of new variants of coronavirus first identified in South Africa and Brazil, which scientists believe may be more infectious and reduce the effectiveness of vaccines.

Non-British travelers from these countries are banned from entering the UK anyway, so they are not currently affected by the quarantine plan.