Travelers to the UK must from Tuesday have a negative coronal test taken up to 48 hours before departure, the government said.
The tightening will take effect on Tuesday and take effect regardless of vaccination status, Health Minister Sajid Javid said on Saturday evening.
Today’s rules dictate that visitors must self-isolate until they test negative within two days of arrival. At the same time, very strict rules are in place for immigrants from Nigeria.
The government has been under pressure over the past week to further tighten rules to curb the spread of the new coronavirus variant omicron.
Javid said the new rules would be introduced after new data on the spread of omicron, which was first identified in South Africa last week.
– In recent days, we have learned about a large number of travel-related cases from Nigeria, he said.
27 cases of omicron have been detected in the UK, most of which can be attributed to South Africa, but more to Nigeria, according to Javid.
Starting Monday, only British and Irish nationals will be allowed into the UK from Nigeria. They must be isolated in state-run quarantine hotels.
On Saturday, British authorities reported 42,848 new coronary cases and 127 deaths in the past 24 hours. The UK has recorded more than 460 cases of infection per 100,000 population in the last seven days.
(©NTB)
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