Scotland has introduced new quarantine measures for arrivals from Greece following concerns of a rise in coronavirus cases in the popular holiday destination.
Travellers returning from the Mediterranean country will have to self-isolate for 14 days if they arrive back in Scotland after 4am on Thursday.
Wales has also asked arrivals from Zante to quarantine for two weeks, but England is yet to introduce any new measures for the destinations.
Wales’s health minister Vaughan Gething is pressing for a meeting with the UK Government to reconsider the rules for Greece.
The move came as holidaymakers scrambled to return from Portugal amid growing concerns restrictions could be reimposed to arrivals from there.
The prevalence of Covid-19 in Greece is currently about 20 per 100,000, but a number of cases of the virus in Scotland have been traced back to travel from Greece.
They include a passenger who flew to Glasgow from Zante on 23 August.
Countries tend to be added to the quarantine list when the figure rises above 20 per 100,000.
There were 14 coronavirus cases per 100,000 people in Greece in the seven days to 31 August, down from 14.9 a week earlier.
Which countries are currently on Scotland’s quarantine list?
- Spain
- Croatia
- Switzerland
- Czech Republic
- Jamaica
- France
- The Netherlands
- Malta
- Austria
- Trinidad & Tobago
- Aruba
- Turks and Caicos
- Monaco
- Andorra
- The Bahamas
- Luxembourg
While people arriving from Greece to England do not have to quarantine, that could change in the coming days.
Scotland’s chief medical officer Dr Gregor Smith said: “There is a compelling public health risk around importation of the virus, especially given the number of imported cases linked to the Greek islands.
“The flow of travel between Scotland and Greece, and the behaviour we have seen from some of those travellers, means that on public health grounds there is a strong case – supported by public health directors – to remove Greece from the exemption list.”
All international travellers coming into Scotland, apart from a very limited number of individual exemptions, must complete a passenger locator form.
Those who do not complete it and present it when asked on arrival may be fined £60.
This can be doubled for each subsequent offence up to a maximum of £480.
Failure to comply with the requirement to quarantine may result in a fine of £480.
Enjoy the convenience of having The Sunday Post delivered as a digital ePaper straight to your smartphone, tablet or computer.
Subscribe for only £5.49 a month and enjoy all the benefits of the printed paper as a digital replica.
Subscribe