Red list: UK considering adding France to list of travel ban countries requiring hotel quarantine

The country has seen a sharp rise in numbers of South African variant of coronavirus

France could be added to the UK’s “red list” of countries from which all incoming travellers are required to quarantine in a hotel.

The country has seen a sharp rise in numbers of South African variant of coronavirus, with new infections reaching a high of 30,000 in a day on Sunday.

According to The Times, ministers are considering adding France to the strictest list to avoid cases of the mutation making it into Britain.

“If there is another spike in Europe and it’s at rampant levels, we don’t want to bring it back here,” an unnamed minister told the paper.

All Britons arriving from 35 “red list” countries have to quarantine for at least 10 days in a designated hotel, costing them up to £1,750.

All arrivals, regardless of origin, need to isolate at home, get a negative result up to 72 hours before they arrive, and get Covid tests on their second and eighth days of isolation.

It is not expected that the situation in December will be repeated, when the UK-France border was closed at short notice.

Hauliers carrying essential supplies and food would not have to quarantine, it is understood, as with the rules for people traveling from other countries.

The question mark around France’s travel rules comes as Boris Johnson makes calls to EU leaders in a bid to prevent the bloc from banning exports of the Covid vaccine to the UK.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen threatened to block exports of jabs from the EU to countries with higher vaccination rates that do not offer reciprocal supplies of vaccine.

Under pressure over the bloc’s relatively poor vaccine rollout, she ramped up the rhetoric this weekend, saying the EU has the power to “forbid” exports, adding: “That is the message to AstraZeneca.”

i has contacted the Department for Transport for comment.

The red list in full

• Angola

• Argentina

• Bolivia

• Botswana

• Brazil

• Burundi

• Cape Verde

• Chile

• Colombia

• Democratic Republic of the Congo

• Ecuador

• Eswatini

• Ethiopia

• French Guiana

• Guyana

• Lesotho

• Malawi

• Mozambique

• Namibia

• Oman

• Panama

• Paraguay

• Peru

• Qatar

• Rwanda

• Seychelles

• Somalia

• South Africa

• Suriname

• Tanzania

• United Arab Emirates (UAE)

• Uruguay

• Venezuela

• Zambia

• Zimbabwe