The UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced that from 4 am Monday, January 18, 2021, arrivals to the UK from any country will have to quarantine.

All countries have been removed from the quarantine-free list, seeking to prevent new mutations from entering the country. Under the new policy, testing negative in no more than 3 days before arriving in the UK is mandatory, but yet, it does not set you free from quarantine.

The period of self-isolation is bound to the second round of testing. Either you receive a negative result at least 5 days after crossing the border or self-isolate for 10 days.

“Yesterday we announced that we’re banning flights from South America and Portugal and to protect us against the risk from as-yet-unidentified strains we will also temporarily close all travel corridors from 4 am on Monday,” Boris Johnson said.

Travel corridors came into force in summer to allow people coming from the countries with low numbers of Covid-19 cases to avoid quarantine on arrival.