UK eyes quarantine hotels for travelers to curb COVID-19 variants

LONDON — Britain appears ready to order some travelers arriving from abroad to isolate in hotels at their own expense in an attempt by the government to stop the importation of new coronavirus variants.

Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said there would be an announcement Tuesday on plans for tighter border measures. The BBC reported that U.K. citizens and residents arriving from most of southern Africa and South America, as well as Portugal, will have to self-isolate in a hotel for 10 days at their own expense.

Quarantine hotels have been used to limit virus transmissions in countries including Australia, New Zealand, China, India and Singapore but the practice has not been widely adopted in Europe.

Zahawi did not give details of the planned the announcement but said tightening border rules was “the right thing to do, because … as we vaccinate more of the adult population, if there are new variants like the South African or the Brazilian variants, we need to be very careful.”

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