There are new strict requirements for travelers who want to enter the UK from Monday, worrying about the new mutations in the coronavirus deadly mount.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has imposed new rules requiring all people traveling to the UK to take a negative coronavirus test in the last 72 hours and must be isolated immediately for up to 10 days, The Times of London reported.
Government data show that the number of coronavirus hospitalized patients in the UK has increased by 35% in the last week. The burden has a serious effect on health workers.
The restrictions do not have an end date, but the government has said they will last at least a month. As most holiday travel has already been banned, the new rules are likely to affect business travelers and British citizens returning from other countries.
The new rules begin days after the prime minister said the national vaccination program would run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Johnson said that after the progress in vaccinations, “what we do not want to see is that all the actions taken by the arrival of a new variant which is vaccination,” reported The Times.
The number of new coronavirus cases in the UK reached 55,885 on Saturday, according to Johns Hopkins University. It fell from a record 68,192 on January 8. New deaths reached 1,285, also down from a record 1,568 deaths on Wednesday.
The virus has killed nearly 87,500 people in the UK, including 76,338 in England.