quarantine

People arriving in Britain from France as of Sunday will no longer be required to quarantine for 11 nights after a change to controversial travel restrictions introduced last month over the percieved high threat of coronavirus Beta variant carriers.

France has described a decision to impose quarantine isolation on all travellers arriving in England from France - and unlike from other EU countries -  as excessive, discriminatory and 'scientifically unfounded'. 

France intends to impose a mandatory quarantine on visitors from Britain to prevent the spread of a worrying virus variant first detected in India.

Britain said the measure - which also applies to people travelling from Monaco, Malta, Turks and Caicos, and Aruba - would kick in from 4am on Saturday.

It comes after Britain's Home Secretary Priti Patel revealed quarantine plans for visitors to the UK from the same date in June.

The British government on Friday said that travellers arriving from France would not be exempt from a two-week quarantine measure over the Covid-19 virus pandemic, insisting that there had been a misunderstanding about a statement a week ago that said there was no requirement 'at this stage'.

New quarantine measures on people arriving in the UK, who are now required to confine themselves over a 14-day period as a precaution against them otherwise transmitting the Covid-19 virus, will not apply to arrivals from France in a decision announced after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson discussed the issue by phone with French President Emmanuel Macron.

New quarantine rules to be included in a decree specifying measures laid out in a bill extending a state of emergency until July 24, a move that allows the government to restrict freedom of movement.