Turkey has become the latest country to be added to the UK’s quarantine list, after a rise in coronavirus cases.
The change was announced by the Transport Secretary Grant Shapps on Twitter on the evening of Thursday 1 October, with the measures coming into effect a couple of days later.
Poland also had its travel corridor removed in the same announcement, along with Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba.
It came after the likes of France, Portugal and Greek islands were removed from the safe travel list in previous weekly updates after recording increases in cases.
Why is Turkey on the quarantine list?
The quarantine restrictions for Turkey come into effect from 4am on Saturday 3 October.
After this, anybody arriving in the UK will have to self-isolate for two weeks – under new rules, breaching these regulations could incur a fixed penalty fine of up to £10,000.
As part of the removal of the travel corridor exemption, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has updated its travel advice to advise against all but essential travel to Turkey.
If people are currently in Turkey, the FCDO advises the follow the local rules and check Government travel advice pages for the latest information – employers are urged to be understanding of the need for returning travellers to self-isolate after Saturday.
According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Turkey recorded 22,272 cases of Covid-19 in the 14 days up to 1 October, the date of the announcement, bringing its total to 318,663.
A UK Government statement said: “The Turkish Health Ministry has said it has been defining the number of new COVID-19 cases in a different way to the definition used by international organisations such as WHO and ECDC, meaning that the Joint Biosecurity Centre’s risk assessment for Turkey has been updated to reflect the likely impact of this on the data for incidence and test positivity rates.”
The Scottish Government, which issued its own quarantine restrictions independently from the UK Government, added that “it is clear that case numbers in Turkey have been under-reported”.
In recent months, as part of its efforts to limit the spread of coronavirus, the Turkish government had imposed curfews. These have been time-limited, or aimed at particular age groups and could be implemented at short notice.What about the other countries?
Explaining the decision to add the other countries to the quarantine list, the Government cited “a significant change in both the level and pace of confirmed cases”.
It added: “Data from Poland shows a 66% increase in the weekly incidence (cases) per 100,000, rising from 14.7 on 23 September to 24.4 on 30 September. Test positivity for Poland has nearly doubled in a week, increasing from 3.9% to 5.8% too.
“Data shows there has been a consistent increase in newly reported cases in Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba over the past 2 weeks with a 740% increase in newly reported cases from 5 between 10-16 September to 42 between 24-30 September.”
Source : inews.co.uk
