Quarantine Coronavirus: Seven Greek islands added to quarantine list as rule change revealed
Seven Greek islands have been added to England's quarantine list - affecting travellers returning from Lesvos, Tinos, Serifos, Mykonos, Crete, Santorini and Zakynthos.
Travellers arriving in England from seven Greek islands will have to self-isolate for 14 days from 04:00 BST on Wednesday, Grant Shapps has said.
It comes as Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced the rules are changing on which areas anyone coming back from must isolate for two weeks.
The islands affected are Lesvos, Tinos, Serifos, Mykonos, Santorini, Crete and Zakynthos (also known as Zante).
Mr Shapps said "enhanced data" allowed the UK to pinpoint risk in islands, providing flexibility to add or remove them as infection rates change.
Travellers arriving in Wales from six Greek islands must already quarantine.
The Scottish government has imposed quarantine restrictions on the whole country of Greece.
Speaking to MPs in the Commons, the transport secretary said: "Through the use of enhanced data we will now be able to pinpoint risk in some of the most popular islands, providing increased flexibility to add or remove them - distinct from the mainland - as infection rates change.
"This development will help boost the UK's travel industry while continuing to maintain maximum protection to public health, keeping the travelling public safe."
Instead of a whole-country approach, individual islands will be able to be treated differently.
Mr Shapps said the new quarantine policy for seven Greek islands will come into effect from 4am on Wednesday.
But mainland Greece will remain on England's exemption list of "travel corridors".
The transport secretary called coronavirus a "dreadful disease" that can "take us all - holidaymakers included - by surprise".
He explained the move to treat islands differently was not yet able to happen for regions within a country's mainland territory.
Mr Shapps said the coronavirus infection rate was still too high in Spain's Balearic and Canary Islands.
He said the government was "working actively on the practicalities" of using coronavirus testing to cut the 14-day quarantine period for people arriving in the UK from high-risk countries.
Purely testing people on arrival "would not work", Mr Shapps said, but quarantine combined with testing was "more promising."
"My officials are now working with health experts with the aim of cutting the quarantine period without adding to infection risk or infringing our overall NHS test capacity," he said.
He added that if someone was unable to quarantine for 14 days after returning to the UK "it might be best not to travel".
It follows anger and confusion from some holidaymakers hit by last-minute changes.
Several have complained that countries added to the quarantine list have seen coronavirus cases growing in a particular region on the mainland - but the islands are still largely safe.
That was the case when Spain was added to the list in July due to a spike of infections in three northeastern regions.
But Labour's shadow transport secretary Jim McMahon described the government's handling of the pandemic as "chaotic".
"For months, even when the virus was at its peak, millions of passengers were coming from all over the world without any restrictions placed upon them at all," he said.
"By the time restrictions were introduced, we were one of only a handful of countries in the world who up to that point had failed to take action in bringing restrictions in place."
