DUBLIN (Reuters) -Ireland added America, Canada, Belgium, France, and Italy to its list of nations where arrivals will be subject to mandatory hotel quarantine, tightening some of Europe’s toughest travel restrictions to try to cease the spread of COVID-19.
Ireland, the only one of the European Union’s 27 nations to introduce a hotel quarantine, announced it would also require all arrivals to have booked a COVID-19 test for 5 days after arriving in addition to one taken in the days before traveling.
It followed neighboring Britain in bringing within the regime for individuals from nations deemed “high risk” or those without a negative COVID-19 test. However, Britain has so far resisted calls for the inclusion of some European nations.
A strict lockdown in Ireland since late December has turned one of the world’s highest incidence rates of COVID-19 into one of Europe’s lowest.
Elsewhere within the continent, Norway requires a forced stay in a quarantined hotel for at least a week for anyone coming from overseas who doesn’t own property or can borrow the use of a property, within the nation.
Armenia, Bangladesh, Bermuda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Curacao, Kenya, Luxembourg, Maldives, Pakistan, Turkey, and Ukraine may also be subject to quarantine in Ireland starting April 15, the health ministry mentioned in a statement.
Israel, Albania, and Saint Lucia were removed, having been added just over a week ago, which means arrivals from more than 70 nations should quarantine for up to 14 days in a hotel room, or leave after 10 if they test negative for COVID-19.
The government initially stopped short of a recommendation by health officials last week to add a number of EU nations to the place large numbers of Irish nationals live, citing potential legal challenges around the bloc’s freedom of movement guidelines.
Hotel quarantine rules are planned to be in place for only a few months, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly mentioned this week. Tourism groups have criticized the government for not providing an exit plan on how they would unwind the measures.
“We can see a permanent pathway out of this pandemic however can’t allow variants of concern to set us back on the progress we have made,” Donnelly mentioned in a statement on Friday.
