People travelling to Poland from Brazil, India and South Africa will have to quarantine, the Polish health minister said on Tuesday, as he announced cases of a COVID-19 variant first detected in India in the Warsaw and Katowice areas.
The outbreaks poses a fresh risk to Poland just as it starts to emerge from a highly damaging third wave of the pandemic.
“In the case of Brazil, India and South Africa, people travelling from these locations will automatically have to quarantine without the possibility of getting an exception due to a test,” Health Minister Adam Niedzielski told a news conference.
The number of infections involving the Indian variant in Poland has now reached 16, including two cases in the family of a Polish diplomat who had returned from India, Niedzielski said.
Poland has so far reported 2,808,052 cases of COVID-19 and 68,133 deaths.
Poland reopened shopping centres on Tuesday, the beginning of a gradual unfreezing of the economy that will see restaurants, hotels and schools reopening at different points in May.
Singapore announced on Tuesday tighter curbs on social gatherings and stricter border measures after recording locally acquired cases of coronavirus variants, including a more contagious strain first detected in India.
After reporting very few local infections for months, numbers have increased in the Asian trade and financial hub over the last week, mainly linked to an outbreak at a hospital. On Tuesday, it confirmed five new locally acquired cases.
The stricter measures, which will be effective from May 8, include extending checks on where incoming travellers have been to three weeks earlier, instead of two weeks currently.
All visitors with a recent travel history in higher risk countries and who arrive from Saturday onwards will also need to be ini quarantine for 21 days, instead of 14.
Meanwhile, United Arab Emirates has extended a ban on entry from travellers coming from India, the foreign ministry in Abu Dhabi said in a statement on its website Tuesday, to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
The statement did not specify a date to lift the suspension, which was first announced on April 22.
“Flights between the two countries will continue to allow the transport of passengers from the UAE to India,” it said. (Reuters)