England removes quarantine obligation for 59 countries
People from 59 countries will no longer be required to quarantine for two weeks from July 10 after arriving in England, British Transport Minister Grant Shapps announced it today.
To prevent further spread of the coronavirus, the British government initially instituted a mandatory two-week quarantine for all visitors. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has not yet succeeded in convincing the governments of Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales to relax the quarantine obligation. They disagree with the UK government’s approach.
Today the British government published a list of 59 countries and jurisdictions that are excluded. Those countries, therefore, no longer have to be quarantined for fourteen days, unless they have also visited countries that are not on the list in the fourteen days before their arrival.
London has retained most of the European Union’s member states, but quarantine obligations still apply to Portugal and Sweden, for example. The United States and China also failed to make the list.
Many countries were not happy with the UK’s quarantine obligation. In mid-June, for example, Spain considered imposing a two-week ‘reciprocal’ quarantine obligation on British visitors. The Spaniards waived this at the last minute.
Labor wants research into Johnson’s corona approach
Labor opposition leader and frontman Keir Starmer, meanwhile, calls an investigation into how the Johnson government has addressed the corona pandemic inevitable. According to Starmer, Johnson didn’t act fast enough.
“I think an investigation is inescapable,” said the opposition leader at Sky. “There will be an investigation in due course.” The Labor leader said he now finds it most important that British politics focus on fighting the corona crisis.
When asked what he thinks of the government’s response to the pandemic, Starmer said, “Too slow, inattentive, it really needs to be improved.” About Johnson, Starmer said that the prime minister is good at rhetoric but bad at governing the country.
The United Kingdom is one of the countries most affected by the corona pandemic. According to data from Jonhs Hopkins University, 285,268 Britons have been diagnosed with coronavirus infection. Forty-four thousand eighty of them died. The country ranks sixth in the series of countries with the most infections and third in the list of countries with the most deaths from the virus outbreak.
