(Bloomberg) --
The U.K. added Switzerland, Jamaica and the Czech Republic to its quarantine list, meaning arrivals from those countries will need to self-isolate for 14 days from early on Saturday.
The restrictions are needed “to keep infection rates down,” Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said in a tweet on Thursday. The decision follows moves to add countries including Austria, Croatia, France and the Netherlands to the quarantine list in recent weeks.
Britain, which has recorded the highest death toll from coronavirus in Europe, is trying to prevent a resurgence of the disease as it re-opens its economy. Boris Johnson's government for lax self-isolation measures early in the pandemic, and is now taking a stricter approach.
The addition of Switzerland follows the same move a week ago by the Scottish government, which also added the Czech Republic and Jamaica on Thursday.
In a sign of the effect of coronavirus on travel, the number of passengers arriving in the U.K. almost totally collapsed in the second quarter. The decline has heaped pressure on travel companies such as Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd, which was plunged into crisis after the virus grounded flights and the U.K. government denied it aid from a multi-billion-pound bailout fund.
The Telegraph newspaper reported on Thursday officials are working on a quarantine exemption for arrivals from New York. Asked to comment on the report, a spokesman for the Department of Transport said: “We keep the data for all countries and territories under constant review, and will not add a country to our travel corridor list unless safe to do so.”
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