FRANCE, NETHERLANDS LAND IN UK’S QUARANTINE LIST

Britain on Thursday announced it is reimposing travel restrictions for six popular holiday destinations amid growing COVID-19 risks, Annika Burgess wrote for Deutsche Press-Agentur (dpa) on August 14, 2020. 

From 4 a.m. on Saturday (0300 GMT or 11 p.m., August 15, in Manila), anyone arriving from France, the Netherlands, Monaco, Malta, Turks and Caicos, and Aruba will have to self-isolate for 14 days, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps tweeted. 

He said the destinations were removed from Britain's list of unrestricted coronavirus "Travel Corridors," in order to keep infection rates down. The Foreign Office has also advised against non-essential travel to France, the Netherlands, and Malta. 

Shapps told the BBC that the quarantine was needed "because we've absolutely worked so hard to make sure that we are keeping our numbers down here... we can't afford to reimport those cases from elsewhere." France is the second most popular travel destination for Brits after Spain. It is estimated that there are hundreds of thousands of British travellers who will need to quarantine when they return. France's junior European affairs minister Clement Beaune responded to the announcement on Twitter saying France will "take reciprocal measures." Beaune added Paris regretted the decision and hoped for "a return to normal as soon as possible."