Any traveler visiting England from a “red list” country faces heavy fines and a possible 10-year prison sentence, according to reports.
Britain’s Secretary of Health, Matt Hancock, was referred to the new policy that went into effect on Monday.
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“We are being tough on people who provide false information on the passenger location form,” he said, according to the Evening Standard. “Anyone who lies on the passenger location form and tries to hide that he was in a country on the ‘red list’ ten days before arriving here, will face a prison sentence of up to ten years.”
Hancock said that starting Monday, UK and Irish residents arriving in England from places on the government’s “red list” will have to buy a “quarantine package” that costs $ 2,400 per person and covers accommodation, virus testing and other items.
There are 33 countries, including South Africa, Portugal and all of South America, where traveling to England is effectively banned in large part due to concerns about new variants of the coronavirus.
Hancock made headlines last week when he said in an interview that the 2011 film “Contagion” helped influence his approach to how best to launch the COVID-19 vaccine in the UK
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The Independent reported that the UK registered 12,364 new cases and 1,052 deaths on Tuesday. There were 113,850 deaths in total linked to the virus.
The Associated Press contributed to this report